We would like to take this opportunity to further clarify our message to all those who were offended by our recent editorial concerning the CHANCE program.

Racism is a very serious issue, and unfortunately, examples of the problem are very evident in some parts of our society. And we need to make clear the fact we are not at all racist. Some might find that hard to believe, and with the amount of response we received, we feel many of you perceive us as racist. Judgements such as this are unfortunate. We want to assure our readers that our personal views and motives would not allow us to print racist ideas.

However, we will stand behind our belief that the CHANCE program needs help. A letter from NIU President John La Tourette has indicated the program is improving, graduation rates are increasing— and that is very good news. But the fact still remains that the amount of students graduating from NIU through the program is still dismally low.

We feel a solution to this problem is to make sure counseling is available to the students throughout their entire stay at NIU. We want to see as many students as possible graduate from this university. On graduation day, we want to see students from all majors and all programs, including CHANCE, experience the exhilarating feeling of accomplishing something really big.

In response to one letter, we did try to contact someone from the CHANCE program before we wrote the editorial. However, CHANCE Director Leroy Mitchell would not make any comments on the program and referred us to Tendaji Ganges, Educational Services and Programs director, who was out of town.

The Northern Star also has learned NIU has a poor reputation when recruiting minorities and the university is known to admit some minorities into NIU through the CHANCE program based solely on their minority status—not on achievements or desire. Although this is not the case of all students admitted through CHANCE, the problem does exist. This is the message we were trying to relay when we said some of these students lack educational skills needed to succeed in college. When inadequate recruiting methods are implemented and some students are admitted into NIU through the CHANCE program, the university might be denying other students, who might be better or equally qualified, the opportunity to attend college.

The problems within the CHANCE program are not the fault of the students or any ethnic group—the problems are the result of what seems to be poor recruiting practices by the program, itself. This is not to say there aren’t any hard working CHANCE students because there are. But in some cases, NIU appears to be recruiting the wrong students for the wrong reasons and not following through on their commitment to these students.