Northwestern’s Summer Academic Workshop will welcome more of the soon-to-be NU community than usual this year.

SAW, a program that traditionally has introduced only incoming black and Latino freshmen to life at NU, will be open to non-minority students this summer, said Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education.

The decision to integrate the program brings NU into compliance with a June 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared programs exclusively for minorities to be unconstitutional.

The purpose of SAW has always been to give students a head start academically and to introduce them to campus and each other, Fisher said. For the program, about 50 incoming freshmen arrive two weeks before New Student Week to attend writing workshops and university information sessions that provide exposure to campus groups, academic advising and the Evanston Campus’ layout.

“We’d like to look for students who, on the basis of their applications, could benefit from writing,” Fisher said.

When Medill freshman Tiffany Forte got an invitation to SAW, she said she decided it would be a productive way to spend the last few weeks of her summer and get a jump start on college life.

Other freshmen who participated in the program in 2003 also said the introduction to campus and life at school was their main motivation for attending.

“Basically, I just wanted to come up early and get an early college experience,” Weinberg freshman Naliaka Wakhisi said.

For Wakhisi and other students, SAW helped them do just that. Former SAW participants said they felt at home on campus before New Student Week began.

“I don’t know if I would put (the change) in terms of positive or negative,” she said. “(But) if it were open to non-minorities, I don’t think something bad would happen.”

But Forte questioned whether SAW will successfully fulfill its purpose now that it is open to non-minorities.

“Being a black student at a school like this is difficult, and SAW eased the transition,” Forte said.

Forte said she is concerned that by opening SAW to non-minority students, the program might limit the number of minority students who can participate and become another version of New Student Week.

“I just hope it doesn’t take away from the experience it (has) been for some students in the past,” she said.

SAW began in the 1960s to help NU’s few minority students connect with a community and feel comfortable. In that respect, SAW will not change, Fisher said.

He added that opening SAW to non-minorities will not change the most important aspect of the program. Some SAW alumni agreed.

“The essence of the program is connecting with people you can share an experience with,” said Weinberg freshman Pauline Ekholt. “Achieving that objective cannot stem solely from who is there demographically.”

Some students think the change will be an improvement. Joy Checa Chong, a Weinberg freshman who attended SAW in 2003, said the program was too focused on race. She added that the books students read for the writing workshops were about minorities and exposure to groups on campus focused predominantly on culture.

“I don’t really like being divided because of race,” she said. “It should be more of a community. It should just be a program for incoming students to get to know what it’s like to write in college and to get to know the campus and other students.”

But Wakhisi said when she chose to participate in SAW, the opportunity to learn about cultural groups on campus appealed to her. She is now involved with several African and African-American groups on campus.

Either way, Fisher said the focus on student groups will be broadened when the program is opened to non-minorities.

Tiffany Forte said she hopes future participants still enjoy SAW as much as she did. For her, the program exceeded expectations.

“I couldn’t imagine not doing SAW,” she said. “It was just the best thing.”