Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 2, Page 15 Winter 1992 Education, business colleges seek more minority students Two colleges at the University have launched new programs to recruit and retain minority students. Under a $140,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts of Philadelphia, the College of Education will work to bring its total enrollment of minorities to 65 by 1994 and graduate an average of 90 percent of the seniors from the program each year. The College of Business and Economics has created a Comprehensive Minority Student Business Program, which seeks to increase the number of majors, improve their academic skills and add to the number of minority graduates who pursue graduate business degrees or obtain managerial positions in industry. Both colleges will employ some of the successful methods of the University's RISE (Resources to Insure Successful Engineers) program, which was responsible for tripling the number of undergraduate minorities enrolled in the College of Engineering over a 10-year period. Terry M. Whittaker, who administered the RISE program for a number of years, has been appointed assistant dean of student special services in the College of Business and Economics. Whittaker said that the new program will provide minorities with academic and career-related assistance, as well as psychosocial motivational activities such as corporate visits and workshops on resume writing and effective oral presentations. According to Frank B. Murray, H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Educational Studies and dean of the College of Education, encouraging minorities to enter the field of education is crucial because minorities are under-represented nationally in the teaching profession. "The minority student population in this country is projected to reach 30 percent by 1995, while the proportion of minority teachers is predicted to be less than 5 percent at that time," he said. Academic, personal and career-related assistance also will be offered to minorities by the Office of Student Services within the College of Education.