| Not only is our aim to significantly increase our recruitment of minority students in the SMET programs, but we must implement strategies that will retain the students to the completion of their degrees. The University of Houston, one of the lead institutions, currently has a 30% overall retention rate for minorities in SMET. This is clearly unsatisfactory, and is primarily due to students who drop out, or who take lighter courseloads over many years in order to support themselves. However, a recent evaluation of a cohort of 88 SMET students participating in the University of Houston’s CLC-based programs showed that 57% of that cohort were retained. This suggests that with aggressive implementation of CLC-based programs, expanded mentoring, and resources for financial support, it is possible to retain significantly more of the 70% of students who currently do not graduate. Based on the Houston LSAMP’s current graduation number of 451 and an estimated 30% retention rate, and assuming no additional recruitment (in reality, recruitment will be a major focus), we would expect approximately 1,500 of the minority students who enter LSAMP institutions in 1999 will eventually major in SMET. These students will comprise our first LSAMP retention target group. We propose to increase our collective retention rate by an average of 5% per year, impacting graduation numbers substantially.
The CLC philosophy is designed to promote student retention as well as provide academic enrichment. In addition to the CLC initiative, a strong mentoring program that has been successful at Rice and the University of Houston will be implemented within the LSAMP. LSAMP Scholars will be integrated into a dynamic, multi-tiered support and mentoring network designed to assure continuity of relationships and appropriate mentoring for each student’s stage of progress. This network can be conceptualized as a pyramid, with mentoring occurring on many levels. At the apex are senior faculty, department chairs, and deans who can influence policy at the department level or college level. Their role is to encourage and guide mentoring of students by junior faculty, to act as consultants to the selection committee, make judgment calls on a student’s status if a situation warrants, and, in the case of senior faculty, to mentor students. Successive levels of mentoring include: junior faculty, senior graduate students, junior graduate students, senior undergraduates, and junior undergraduates. (The latter groups will participate in the recruitment process at the high school or community college level.) The plan allows for students to both mentor and be mentored at the same time. The culture of mentoring addresses an important barrier to success of minorities in SMET fields: lack of a support network. This model will be adopted by the other academic institutions as they are able.
A structured mentoring and advising program will be implemented in which each Houston LSAMP scholar is matched with an LSAMP faculty advisor within that student’s institution. This will facilitate intensive monitoring of progress, timely detection and correction of problems, and individualized guidance regarding opportunities for research or industry internships, entrance into graduate school, and opportunities for careers in SMET fields. We plan to conduct faculty development workshops to train faculty to become effective mentors, increasing their sensitivity to minority issues and understanding of minorities’ barriers to education.
An orientation program, conducted live and via videoconference, will welcome all new members of each Houston LSAMP Scholar cohort both in the Fall and Spring semesters. We plan an annual summer Houston LSAMP-wide seminar weekend at Texas State University. In addition to intellectual development, this regular event will promote networking and reinforce the sense of being part of a group with similar goals and aspirations.
Each institution’s core academic enrichment program will emphasize community building through cooperative learning. Special effort will be placed on the freshman year transition period to help students develop the confidence and self-assurance needed to succeed in a rigorous curriculum. Students will be grouped into clusters or workshops to reduce ethnic isolation and promote group study. As mentioned previously, each LSAMP institution will make available an LSAMP study center, which will also serve as a home base for the students, a place for planning study sessions and other activities, or where they can simply be assured of finding a familiar face.
Through an agreement between Rice University and other Houston LSAMP institutions, a cadre of Rice University’s mathematics graduate students, both African American and Hispanic American, will lead workshops at participating universities. Over a third of Rice’s Computational and Applied Mathematics Department’s current graduate students are underrepresented minorities. These graduate students will be exceptional role models for the undergraduates, while acquiring valuable experience in teaching and mentoring in preparation for their own careers. |
