Panel Calls for More Minorities at School : Civil rights: Its report on the University of Massachusetts is based on a wave of racial disputes, including one in 1986 that left 12 students injured.

A federal civil rights panel on Tuesday called for more minority recruitment and multicultural studies at the University of Massachusetts, which is working to ease racial tension on campus.

“Despite evident progress, a need obviously exists for administrators, students and faculty to continue to listen to, and work with, each other so that by mid-decade tensions will have been reduced--perhaps to the vanishing point by the dawn of the 21st Century,” said its chairwoman, Dorothy S. Jones.

The 13-member Massachusetts Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent federal agency, is to release a report Monday on a wave of unrest at the school. Officials released details of the report Tuesday.

It calls for boosting the number of minority students with more federal scholarships and financial aid, as well as heavier student involvement in shaping a culturally diverse curriculum. It also says campus police are not fully trained to deal with bigotry and sometimes contribute to the problem.

Minority students and faculty made similar complaints at the Amherst campus in September and October. They cited racial attacks on blacks, a dormitory rampage by students who left behind anti-white slurs, and a protest occupation of an administration building.

No one was seriously injured, but university officials have bolstered campus security and pledged other action to calm tension and correct longstanding injustices.

They also have said they will bolster minority recruitment and multicultural views in the curriculum, and develop a training program to help campus security officers deal better with racial problems and minorities. And they have opened talks with minority representatives with help from U.S. Justice Department mediators.

However, some minority students and professors have expressed frustration that similar pledges in the past have failed to yield more progress.

Sandra Rose, who is a junior and a campus activist, said the advisory panel is recommending “wonderful, wonderful things.” But she added: “When it comes to the time of making some concrete decisions . . . it never really comes through.”

School spokeswoman Kay Scanlan said “the administration shares the frustration of those who have heard these proposals and plans before.”

But she said campus officials “are very optimistic that a precise program and timetable will be coming out of the mediation efforts.”

The advisory committee’s report is based largely on a September, 1991, campus meeting, before the latest round of tension. Committee members heard testimony from 29 panelists, mainly from the Amherst campus and nearby Smith College, a private women’s school in nearby Northampton.

The report was undertaken partly to look at progress since 12 students were injured in a 1986 racial brawl at the University of Massachusetts after a World Series game.