Working With Community Organizations To Improve The Pipeline Of Minorities In Engineering

The Program for the Retention of Engineering and Science Students (PRESS) is designed to improve the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities and women in the College of Science and Engineering at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). Finding ways to recruit students is normally the job of the admissions office. The admissions office mission is to recruit students to apply to the university without targeted majors. It is often up to the each department to find the best and brightest students. The College of Science and Engineering at LMU wanted to do more to improve our chances of recruiting underrepresented students. In order to accomplish this goal we started a high school outreach program in the summer of 2001. We found funding from private corporations and foundations that shared our goal of increasing the pipeline of students in engineering majors by improving the representation of African American, Latino, Native American, and female students. This article discusses the methods the PRESS Office used to develop a very valuable and meaningful program that supports our community and benefits the University.