QUALIFIED STUDENTS WILL SEEK QUALITY COLLEGES

Southeast Missouri State University, like others around the nation since the affirmative-action push in the 1980s, has tried to attract minority students to its campus. Now the university has taken a new approach by naming a 36-member commission it hopes will work to help boost the school's number of black and other minority students, faculty and staff.

The President's Commission on Minority Affairs, which Southeast president Dr. Dale Nitzschke has spent months putting together, will meet twice a year. Nitzschke wants the commission to help the university market itself to minorities statewide and to serve as "sort of a brain trust" on how best to recruit minority students, faculty and staff.

The new emphasis on recruiting minorities has been brought on by a declining number of African-American students. Black enrollment fell from 536 in 1991 to 291 last year. About the same number, which translates to just 4 percent of the school's enrollment, is expected for the upcoming school year.

The reasons minority enrollment doesn't come up to the school's expectations are many. A delegation of black students told the Board of Regents that blacks feel alienated on the predominantly white campus.

Regardless of the reasons, one must wonder why the university feels so compelled, particularly in view of moves away from affirmative action, to name a commission for the sole purpose of attracting minority students.

Qualified minority students as well as qualified non-minority students will seek out and find a quality college education -- wherever it is offered.