Encouraging Underrepresented Minority And Women Students To Become Interested In Research And To Attain Graduate Degrees

Although the numbers of underrepresented minority and women students have been slowly increasing during the last decade at the undergraduate level, a similar increase has not occurred at the graduate level for minority students. The percentage of women pursuing an advanced degree in engineering (20%) is slightly higher than women pursuing an undergraduate degree. But, although the percentage of underrepresented undergraduate minority students in engineering is approximately 15%, the graduate minority percentage still hovers around 5%. A program to help change this situation is the Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research Community (CIRC) program, whose goal is to increase the number of both women and minorities seeking a graduate degree in engineering. The Fulton School of Engineering CIRC program began in the Fall of 2002. CIRC is part of the Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (CSEMS) program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to recruit underrepresented minority students to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. The first CIRC class of 22 included 15 students who were either a minority or female or both. The CIRC program students meet five times a semester. CIRC informative sessions include guest speakers on how to get involved in an engineering research project, writing a resume to obtain an internship, how to select and apply for graduate school, and getting funding for graduate school, which will be described in detail. Assessment of the program is done at each meeting and feedback is provided to the students at the next meeting. Students in the CIRC program are obtaining research positions and are considering graduate school as part of their career goals. The Fulton School of Engineering graduate recruitment activities include booths at national meetings, participation in GEM (National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science, Inc.) and EMERGE (Empowering Minority Engineers/scientists to Reach for Graduate Education) , and a second CSEMS program for transfer students. In addition, we are “growing our own” by encouraging ASU students to pursue a graduate degree at ASU. The Fulton School provides undergraduate support programs for women and underrepresented minority students which include student chapters of AISES, NSBE, SHIP, and SWE. The Center for Engineering Diversity and Recruitment (CEDAR) is part of the strong support network for women and underrepresented minority students in engineering. The Fulton School is dedicated to supporting women and underrepresented minority students at the graduate level with the philosophy that we can only do this one student at a time.