University officials said yesterday that many of the demands issued Friday by Black Caucus members are either not feasible, already exist, or would have to apply to all student groups.

Penn State President Graham Spanier, Vice Provost for Educational Equity Terrell Jones and Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey received a list of 11 demands in a letter from Black Caucus President Ed Smith and Vice President Gandarvaka Gray. The demands were for an improved racial climate at Penn State.

Triponey, Jones and Spanier issued an official response to the demands yesterday.

Gray originally said caucus members would issue a response to the university in the early evening via the group's Web site.

However, at deadline last night, Secretary Kwamena Entsuah said the group would only issue a reaction to the university's comments on the condition that The Daily Collegian include a direct link to its Web site in this story.

The Collegian's policy is not to allow sources to dictate news content.

Entsuah said the group would have no further comment on the issue.

One of the demands Black Caucus is making for its members are "annual stipends in the amount of six full tuitions" as well as "an annual budget for the maintenance and expansion of all its current programming."

Triponey said last night that it would not be fair to tax other students in order for a few students in one of the university's 600 student organizations to receive stipends.

The group is also looking to receive an annual budget, instead of the current event by event funding requests required by the University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC).

Triponey said the student affairs department is currently looking into providing annual funding, but any change would be applied to all student groups, not just Black Caucus.

UPAC Overall Chairman Tom Truong said Friday that Black Caucus has successfully received funding for every request they have submitted so far.

Black Caucus is also asking for increased diversity among Penn State University Police.

In their official response to Black Caucus, Jones and Triponey said "greater diversification of University Police is an existing objective" and added that they will continue to hire students from under-represented groups.

The university's response also says a "Report Hate" Web site, as listed in the group's demands, already exists through the Office of Educational Equity.

Jones declined to comment further on the matter Monday afternoon and could not be reached at his home Monday night.

The group is also asking for the creation of a new Office of the Vice President of Multicultural Affairs.

Triponey said creation of a new office would not necessarily solve the problem of racism.

"All of our staff in student affairs as well as in the department of educational equity pay attention to the issue of racism and diversity," she said. "I don't know that a new name will necessarily fix the problem."

The response from Jones and Triponey to Black Caucus also includes a list of diversity initiatives currently in place on campus, including the Multicultural Resource Center and the Commission on Racial/Ethnic Diversity.

Triponey said she and Jones are looking forward to meeting with Black Caucus members, but added they expressed an interest in meeting with Spanier first.

"I'm hoping that we can sit down with them and have a civilized dialogue in the near future," she said.