SHARON -- The University will not decide whether to require the ethnic diversity courses recommended in the final social scientists' report on University Park's racial climate until fall, administrators and faculty said Friday.

Presented to the University's Board of Trustees, the report recommended that minorities courses be a general education requirement for all students.

But the recommendation is a curriculum question, not an administrative matter, said William Asbury, vice president for student services. Changes in general education requirements are in the realm of the Faculty Senate, he said.

Required diversity courses will be considered at the first or second senate meeting in the fall, said senate head George Bugyi. Students have been requesting action in the area for years and now the University must act, he said.

"We must address it and do it very, very quickly," Bugyi said.

The report has been widely distributed and its recommendations are being reviewed, University President Bryce Jordan told the board.

"We keep working at it day-in, day-out amidst feelings of controversy," Jordan said. "Continuing dialogue is very important to make the atmosphere at Penn State more welcoming to all students."

An as-yet unappointed vice provost - who will be in charge of minority concerns - will use the report as a tool and be responsible for seeing its recommendations implemented, Jordan told the board. The report is presently handled by Vice President for Academic Services Robert Dunham.

A committee on racial and ethnic diversity, established last spring, will recommend strategies for approval and implementation by administrators, Jordan said.

The report was generally positive, Jordan said. Certain programs were commended, and the report stated that the University's goal of diversity is possible, he said. But the University must enhance programs and communication, he added.

"What we have . . . is a challenge to improve the programs we have," Jordan said. "Penn State has a sort of state-of-the-art approach (to minority concerns)."

Programs such as the partnerships with public schools in Reading and McKeesport and the Center for Minority Graduate Opportunities and Faculty Development give the University a good basis from which to work, Jordan said.

The University hopes to establish a third partnership program in Philadelphia, he said.

The University's budget, passed by the board Saturday, is increasing its aid to its neediest students by 2 percent and a disproportionate amount of those funds will probably go to minority students, said Executive Vice President and Provost William Richardson. One of the report's recommendations was an aid package for out-of-state black students.

The possible development of a department of black studies here - a recommendation of an interim report received at the University in March - is being analyzed by James B. Stewart, director of the black studies program, Jordan said. He is spending the summer at Indiana University at Bloomington studying their department and working with Joseph Russell, one of the scientists who wrote the report, he said.

The scientists visited the campus twice - in December and in March. They were originally commissioned because of demands made by a group of student protestors during a takeover of the Telecommunications Building last spring. Students criticized the timing of the first visit because it was finals week and many students had already left for semester break.

More work on the recommendations will begin in the fall, when more faculty and students can be involved, Jordan said.

"I think it's better to start when you have your full forces," he said.