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Description
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Since 1995, the Sloan
Foundation has funded a graduate education enhancement
program for students in computational sciences at Rice
University. By focusing on student retention through
community building, counseling, intervention, mentoring,
professional development, and student funding, the program
has experienced dramatic success in the retention of
underrepresented minority graduate students.
The program is guided by the
following philosophy: Attempting to increase the numbers of
underrepresented minorities in computational sciences
graduate programs, well-intentioned universities increase
student funding, and the most enlightened ones institute
more sensitive admission policies. That is to be applauded
as a step in the right direction, and we must encourage
these practices on a much broader scale. Yet those measures
do little to address the harder, more critical problem of
student retention. Getting students and keeping them are two
different problems with two very different solutions. If our
efforts are toward recruitment alone, few real gains will be
made.
Sloan Engineering and Science Underrepresented Minority Ph.D.s Recruitment and
Retention Conference:
http://www.crpc.rice.edu/CRPC/SLOAN/
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