Over the past several weeks, WU for Undergraduate Socio-Economic Diversity has held a photo campaign with students completing statements on whiteboards to show their support for increased socioeconomic diversity in admissions.

In addition to the photo campaign, WU/FUSED members have asked students to sign a petition, which has garnered around 500 signatures. The petition asks that Washington University bring its Pell Grant-eligible student percentage up to par with peer institutions by 2020, release information about different strategies for reaching that goal, increase support for students in St. Louis Public Schools to apply and attend, and increase financial aid to cover additional expenses.

WU/FUSED members said that they began the campaign and petition to show administrators that students valued socioeconomic diversity and were willing to make sacrifices to work toward it.

Provost Holden Thorp attended the WU/FUSED group meeting Wednesday to discuss the administration’s ongoing efforts and how students can help.

“I think we have built a lot of momentum over the last year and a half. The work that [WU/FUSED] has done has been instrumental in that. The way social change happens is that there are a few people inside of organizations like me who want to do these things, but we can’t get enough people to agree to do them without some pressure from the outside,” Thorp said.

“Having said that, there are a lot of challenges getting people comfortable with this idea, and I don’t think there is any one person to blame for the fact that this hasn’t happened until now,” he added. “Wash. U. has made some smart strategic decisions that may have made it the place that it is…those things were invested in to move Wash. U. from where it was. It’s easy to say that this should have been done differently, but…to say we shouldn’t have invested in things when we did is kind of false logic. So the question is what do we do now.”

Thorp said he plans to bring the University’s percentage of Pell Grant-eligible students up to 13 percent to be closer-aligned with peer institutions with similar endowments, like Johns Hopkins, Duke and Northwestern Universities. To do so, Thorp said, $25 million per year will need to be reallocated toward scholarships.

He added that the best way for students to help achieve the goal of increased socioeconomic diversity is to continue with efforts of asking administrators to change policies.

“Sometimes administrators sit in our quiet conference rooms and think we know what you all want, and I’m very skeptical when that happens if we haven’t asked you. I think just telling us directly that this is important to you is the most important thing you can do,” Thorp said.

WU/FUSED member and sophomore Lauren Chase said that the group’s efforts have increased recently in order to express the significant student opinion on the topic of socioeconomic diversity.

“[Administrators] have made a commitment to increasing socioeconomic diversity at Wash. U. They have been called out time and time again for having the lowest percentage of Pell-eligible students out of all of our peer institutions, and I think in order for them to move faster and move more confidently, they need to see that students are supportive of this and are willing to potentially make some sacrifices in order to have admissions be more equitable,” Chase said.

Chase said that the group plans to make another push for petition signatures when the spring semester begins. It is also planning to work with Student Union to pass a resolution in favor of socioeconomic diversity.

The group plans to present administrators and the board of trustees with the signed petition, the resolution and pictures from the photo campaign, as well as personal stories from students who come from lower-income backgrounds.