| Building a pipeline By Julie Melrose, special to the Chronicle
"I think faculty members have to be aggressive in recruiting and mentoring," said Seymour. "They can't wait for underrepresented individuals to knock on the door and say, 'May I come in?' Because there are too many other institutions competing for the same small pool of candidates." Seymour's commitment isn't an abstract matter of numbers, but reflects a deeply-felt belief that greater diversity among students and faculty members "enriches the educational experience." The provost also believes that effective recruitment to increase the size of the minority student pool benefits society as a whole. "It creates a larger educated work-force, and encourages the effective use of the talents and abilities of all of our citizens. The more educated people we have in our society, the better off we'll all be." Seymour pointed out that retention of underrepresented minority students to degree attainment produces a multiplier effect "There's a strong relationship in our society between college attendance and career success," she said. "When individuals become successful, it enables them to earn an income that will then allow them to support their children in attending college." To bolster recruitment and retention efforts UMass was awarded two sizable grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that require significant faculty involvement. In both case UMass implements activities on campus and also serves as the lead institution for regional coalitions engaged in similar efforts. NEAGEP The Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NEAGEP), for which UMass was granted an anticipated $2.5 million over five years, is one of several coalitions intended by NSF to increase significantly the number of underrepresented minorities receiving doctorates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). NSF particularly seeks to increase the number of these individuals entering the professoriate, since a scarcity of role models and mentors has been shown to constitute a significant barrier to producing minority STEM graduates. UMass actually has two sets of institutional partners in this project Other schools in NEAGEP are Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University and Rutgers University. Campuses at which UMass is prioritizing its efforts to recruit underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines include Jackson State University, Lincoln University, Long Island University, Medgar Evers College, and The University of Puerto Rico-Mayague. The program, now in its fourth year with Seymour as co-principal investigator (and original co-PIs Donald Fisher of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sandra Petersen of Biology, Donald St. Mary of Mathematics and Statistics, and Peter Hepler of Biology), has been primarily focusing on "pipeline" activities to pave the pathway from undergraduate schools to specific graduate programs in STEM areas at UMass Amherst. A summer residential program in undergraduate research (SPUR) has been implemented in each of the past three years. In SPUR, faculty host students in individual laboratories; students meet together to learn skills such as how to succeed at long-term research projects, how to give poster presentations, how to write scientific papers and how to apply to graduate school; students gain peer mentors by interacting with minority students already enrolled in STEM graduate programs at UMass; and students participate in field trips that expose them to science in action. At the end of the SPUR term, students present their work in a poster session. Many SPUR participants stay in active contact with their mentors and receive support for applying to graduate programs in STEM disciplines. The number and qualifications of SPUR applicants has improved over the program's first three years, suggesting that the reputation of the program is growing. The first two years drew 40 applicants each, with approximately 25 accepted. This past summer drew close to 90 applicants, 25 of whom were accepted. The average GPA of SPUR participants has increased from 2.6 to 3.3 since the program's inception. The UMass NEAGEP site has hosted two fall recruitment weekends at which undergraduates from schools nationwide were brought to campus to hear scientific presentations, tour laboratories and meet in small groups with STEM faculty. The popularity of this activity is also growing. In 2001, there were 45 applicants and 31 attendees; this year, there were 90 applicants and 72 attendees. The average GPA of participants has been 3.4, making them potentially attractive candidates for STEM graduate programs. UMass NEAGEP uses "diversity teams" - groups (primarily faculty) from STEM disciplines who travel to partner institutions to do on-site recruitment, and to make personal contacts at schools with significant numbers of underrepresented minority students These contacts can be with administrators, STEM faculty members or potential graduate students. During the first year of the grant, all five partner campuses were visited by UMass diversity teams. Another series of five trips is now underway. This outreach work is considered particularly crucial because their faculty mentors often guide undergraduates toward particular graduate schools. By making its STEM opportunities known on other campuses UMass increases the chance that it will come to mind when graduate schools are being considered. Biology professor Sandra Petersen, thinks that the diversity team approach is more effective than traditional methods. "It seems to be most effective to have UMass faculty get to know faculty members at minority-serving institutions Those faculty members see the students as 'their kids,' and they're not going to send them to a place where they don't trust they're going to get the best mentoring." Under the auspices of the UMass NEAGEP office, specialized tools and materials have been developed for use in recruitment. These include multi-format visual aids for presentations; brochures; posters; banners; databases of students, faculty and staff throughout the Northeast; news releases and a web page with links to the other Northeast Alliance institutions. To expose students to additional role models of minority individuals with successful careers in STEM fields, the project has brought guest lecturers to campus. NEAGEP project funding at UMass has helped to support the graduate education of 11 Alliance Fellows (first-year graduate students) and six Dissertation Fellows. Preliminary analysis of the impact of NEAGEP activities at UMass suggests that they are boosting both admission recruitment contacts and applications among underrepresented minority students. Since the start of the grant, student recruitment contacts within these populations have increased from under 10 annually to over 300 per year Applications of underrepresented minority students to UMass STEM doctoral programs have increased from 34 in fall 1998 to 54 last fall. Preliminary data for fall of 2003 indicates another increase to 71. In a field in which the national numbers are so small, this type of increase represents significant progress. LSAMP The other large NSF grant dedicated to increasing the participation of underrepre-sented minorities in the STEM fields is part of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) initiative. This program is designed to strengthen the preparation of minority students in STEM disciplines and increase the number who complete baccalaureates The UMass award is for an anticipated $2.1 million over five years, the first of which has just been completed. Principal investigator and deputy provost John Cunningham said that the qualities that made UMass an attractive candidate for the LSAMP grant were not only the prior presence of NEAGEP on campus, but also "the alliance that was brought together. It is a gathering of public and private institutions in Massachusetts and southern New England (UMass Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Northeastern University, University of Rhode Island and the University of Connecticut). We also included the New England Board of Higher Education, which has contacts at all of the Alliance institutions." The Northeast LSAMP Alliance is one of 34 nationwide. Specific activities at each of the campuses of the Northeast Alliance vary with the problems encountered. Cunningham noted that UMass shares with many other campuses a national trend concerning underrepresented minority undergraduates. "The problem on our campus is not that students don't graduate, but that they don't persist in the sciences So here, we are focusing on persistence in the STEM majors, so that students both begin and graduate with excellent academic records," he said. UMass LSAMP program will focus its efforts on providing undergraduates with research opportunities - an activity known to be very effective in promoting persistence in the STEM disciplines Typically, much of the first grant year has been spent in planning and promotion, including outreach to faculty to encourage them to support students by providing research opportunities and individual mentorship. Both students and faculty members stand to gain from LSAMP. Each student will have an enhanced educational experience by getting to know a faculty member well and having hands-on experience in a research lab, and faculty will have the opportunity to get to know undergraduates, train them in the work of the lab, and make a positive difference in students' lives. In addition to supporting the student-faculty research partnerships, the UMass LSAMP project is identifying additional ways of encouraging students to persist in STEM fields, such as supporting Science and Engineering Days. Cunningham noted that UMass is also pursuing another NSF grant that would allow the school to offer undergraduate research opportunities to all STEM majors. NSF coalitions Seymour said the multi-school coalition aspect of the grant projects "enables us to sit down and talk about problems we're having on our individual campuses, and this brainstorming leads to creative strategies. It's an opportunity for intellectual exchange. It forces our campuses to try to solve problems in a group way, so that more people in the higher education community buy into the solutions we come up with." The provost cautions, however, that to be effective, coalition meetings must go beyond the airing of complaints. "Sometimes if people say, 'Everybody's got this problem,' that becomes an excuse for doing nothing about it. We have to say, 'Everybody's got this problem, so we have to do something about it together,'" said Seymour. Faculty involvement in recruiting Seymour encourages faculty members to take advantage of opportunities to recruit underrepresented minority individuals as both students and faculty members. Sometimes those opportunities are informal; at other times they are organized specifically for recruitment purposes. As an example, Seymour and deans Lee Edwards (Humanities and Fine Arts), Janet Rifkin (Social and Behavioral Sciences) and Eileen Breslin (Nursing) recently attended a job fair held at the 2002 Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute and Mentoring. The Virginia event was sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board of Atlanta. Breslin said she found the event helpful. "The institute allowed the School of Nursing to interact with, and recruit, exceptional graduate nursing students who are prospective future faculty. We have been following up on our contacts, and hope that these individuals will see UMass in their future," said Breslin. Petersen said her personal involvement in diversifying the student and faculty pools, at UMass and nationally, stems from her own experiences as a faculty member. "My minority students helped me understand the importance of role models. I had several African American students who were tremendously talented, but who were hesitating about applying to graduate school. One of them finally articulated that he had never had a black professor or a black doctor, he didn't have confidence in his own abilities. I thought, 'If our current system can do this to our best and brightest students, there's something really wrong.' This vicious cycle has to stop somewhere. Having more diversity in the professoriate is critical if our nation is going to make any progress at all in this area." Seymour stressed that she favors having the responsibility for increased diversity infused into the campus at large, rather than leaving it up to a dedicated department like "The Office for...." She said, "If the effort isn't integrated into everything we do, then people don't take responsibility for creating change. They just assume that the specialized office is going to take care of things." Nor, said Seymour, can the bulk of the change occur at the administrative level, although the administration can act as a catalyst. "The administration can plant the seeds, monitor the way diversity efforts get done, redefine and establish new policies, and enact reorganizations. But the actual force behind getting things done has to be at the faculty level, because that's the level that most engages with the students." Seymour acknowledges that some departments and programs will take more time to develop effective recruitment and retention programs for underrepresented minorities at both the student and the faculty levels. Nevertheless, the assumption exists at the highest levels of the administration that things will move in this direction. "Faculty are going to vary in how quickly they want to consider engaging in these types of programs," said Seymour, "but I do expect to see progressively increasing involvement." |
