The number of black students who intend to enroll as UCLA freshmen in the fall will be double last year's, an increase to 203 that officials attribute to changes in application review methods and to new private scholarships organized by African American alumni.
The boost, announced Friday, eased concerns that blacks' presence at UCLA had declined so much -- down to 103 freshmen or 2.2% of the class last year -- that some African Americans felt uncomfortable at the Westwood campus and others were reluctant to enroll.
UCLA Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said he was very pleased with the increase and thanked alumni and current students who raised scholarship donations and sponsored events to woo blacks wavering about enrollment. Abrams said all that was done without violating Proposition 209, the state initiative that bans the use of race in university admissions.
"I think we got the message out that we are a welcoming environment and that we have this great legacy and tradition with regard to African American students," Abrams said, referring to such black alumni as former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ralph Bunche.
Among the incoming freshmen is Miles Rashaad Goodloe, a highly ranked Crenshaw High School student and musician who said a $9,000 grant from the privately funded African American Student Scholarship Fund tipped him to UCLA over UC Berkeley and three other schools. "What it really came to at the end was finances," said Goodloe, who plans to major in economics and minor in music.
On previous UCLA visits, Goodloe said, he was shocked at the low number of blacks. "I didn't see many people who looked like me," he said. But his recent contacts with black student organizations and alumni made him feel welcome.
Peter Taylor, the Los Angeles businessman who chairs the scholarship fund, said all African Americans accepted to the UCLA freshman class were offered a minimum $1,000 grant from the $1.75 million raised. Depending on financial need and academic promise, grants went as high as $9,000 to compete with well-funded private colleges.
Taylor, a UCLA alumnus, was among a group of activists and campus leaders who were upset last year when the University of California released figures showing that only 96 black freshmen -- the number later climbed slightly -- intended to attend UCLA.
