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.