Preliminary Committee Report Claims Equal Access Worked Well This Year

The Committee to Review Equal Access (CREA) has found that equal access admissions is functioning successfully in the three areas examined this year, Alberta Arthurs chairman of the committee, told a faculty meeting Tuesday in a preliminary report.

"On the whole, after several months of monitoring, the committee is favorably impressed by equal access as an admissions policy, by the fairness of the procedures adopted, and by the relative ease and efficiency with which equal access has been accepted," Arthurs told the faculty.

However, she also mentioned several "problems in understanding and implementation" of the admissions process, but refused to comment on those until CREA has compiled information about the class of 1980.

William R. Fitzsimmons, director of admissions, said yesterday that those problems were minor and of the sort that occur when something is done for the first time.

There were difficulties in "trying to get equal access across to alumni, schools, and others, but this is one of the things the admissions office spent a long time doing," Fitzsimmons said.

Fitzsimmons said that CREA was "very much involved in admissions and had a very good chance to see everything close up--they were very fair and accurate."

CREA is composed of six faculty members, two alumnae, and admissions officers at Stanford, Princeton, and Bryn Mawr.

The committee members "attended admissions meetings, interviewed members of the admissions staff, and worked closely with Dean L. Fred Jewett and other deans and directors in the office," Arthurs said in her report.

"The outside experts met with the committee to exchange ideas, raise new questions, and give us a different perspective," Arthurs said yesterday.

"Two of them had followed the Strauch Committee and kept informed throughout of what was happening here, in addition to having dealt with equal access at their own universities," she said.

Arthurs said she could not predict future ratios for classes since equal access has been operating for only one year and depends on the composition of the applicant pool.

"We were quite amazed that things went so smoothly with no terrible disasters," Zeph Stewart, professor of Greek and Latin and a CREA member, said yesterday.

Stewart said the committee was united in its view of the success of equal access.

CREA will present another report about equal access at a faculty meeting on May 18. The report will include statistics and data about the class of 1980 to support the committee's view that the admissions process worked successfully this year.

The committee will publish another report in the fall, and a final report about equal access admissions at the end of the three-year study