The Spaulding-Smith STEM Fellowship Program is named for Major Franklin Spaulding, the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Hight Smith, who in 1905, was the first woman to earn a graduate degree at the university.
Unlike African American enrollments in undergraduate programs which have dropped in recent years, Black graduate school enrollments have remained steady. In the 2016-17 academic year, 449,617 African Americans were enrolled in graduate programs.
The new office will develop initiatives designed to help students amplify the impact of their research, prepare for leadership positions, and broaden their career options. It will focus on recruitment, retention and success of graduate students from historically underrepresented populations.
The 2016 Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan at Brown University called on the university to double the number of graduate students from historically underrepresented groups by 2022. It’s off to a good start.
According to a new report by the Council on Graduate Schools, in 2016, there were 184,235 Black students enrolled in graduate programs in the United States. They made up 10 percent of total enrollments. Women made up nearly 70 percent of all Black enrollments in graduate education.
Dr. Smith was a member of the 1980 and 1984 U.S. Olympic team in the sport of fencing. He currently serves as dean of the Graduate School at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He has held that post since 2009.
African Americans were awarded 682 doctoral degrees from Walden University between 2011 and 2015. This is almost double the number of doctoral degrees awarded by Howard University, which ranks in second place in doctoral degree awards to blacks from 2011 to 2015.
The Graduate College at historically Black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro has announced that it will offer a professional science master’s (PSM) degree program in industrial biosciences, beginning this coming fall.
Since 2010 there have been 120 Biology Scholars who have graduated from the university. More than 90 percent of those who applied to medical school were accepted and enrolled. Another 19 students are enrolled in Ph.D. programs and three are enrolled in M.D./Ph.D. programs.
Since 2015, Dr. Michael Joseph Brown has been serving as academic dean and interim president at the seminary. Previously, he was an associate professor of New Testament and Christian origins at Emory University in Atlanta.
The Philip Freelon Fellowship Fund at the Harvard Graduate School of Design will be used to provide financial aid to African Americans and students from other underrepresented groups who are pursuing graduate degrees in design.
The Graduate and Professional Student Senate at Yale University released a new survey that found that more than 70 percent of all Black graduate or professional students reported incidents of bias, harassment or discrimination.
Students who are admitted to the new Ph.D. program will have the opportunity to be selected to work as graduate assistants for several organizations including the United Negro College Fund, The Education Trust, and the American Council of Education.
Blacks made up nearly 18 percent of new graduate enrollments in public administration and 12 percent in education, business, and social and behavioral sciences. But Blacks were just 3.2 percent of all new graduate enrollments in the physical sciences.
John Urschel, an offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, recently completed his first semester in the mathematics Ph.D. program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He took four courses and had a 4.0 grade point average.
Only 4 percent of the members of America’s professional orchestra musicians are Black or Latino, according to the League of American Orchestras. A new fellows program at the University of Cincinnati, in conjunction with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, seeks to increase diversity in the field.
Before coming to Oregon State in 2015 as associate dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Jennifer Dennis served for 11 years on the faculty of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
The Graduate Initiative for Diversity, Inclusion and Access aims to increase the diversity of the student body in the graduate school at the university and to broaden academic support for underrepresented minority students.
Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, has announced the establishment of the Diversity, Excellence, and Inclusion Scholarships. Recipients will receive full-tuition credits and a $10,000 stipend for master’s degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts.
The Academy for Future Science Faculty consists of individual and group-based professional development activities, discussions with fellow students, and highly skilled mentors serving as coaches, many of them minorities themselves, trained in diversity issues.
The Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research aims to encourage Black and other minority graduate students to pursue doctoral degrees and careers in research relating to cancer.
The Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative seeks to encourage students from underrepresented minority groups to pursue graduate studies in the humanities, education, and social sciences.
Four Black men earned doctorates this spring in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State under the mentorship of Dr. Terrell Strayhorn, the youngest full professor in the university’s history.
Each year, only about 1,000 African Americans men earn doctoral degrees. Thus, it is noteworthy that this spring four African American men earned their doctoral degrees in one department at Louisiana State University.
One important finding in the Council of Graduate Schools report was that minority doctoral students had the most difficulty when they entered the dissertation phase of their doctoral programs.
The university has offered a pharmacy doctoral program since 2010. The new graduate programs will focus on pharmaceutical research with concentrations in drug design or drug delivery.
The society’s goal is to create a network of scholars who “serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy.”
The organization aimed at helping Black women graduate students, was formed in January 2013 with 15 members. Today there are more than 90 people involved with the program, including students, faculty, and alumni.
According to the National Science Foundation, there were 18 academic fields where none of the doctorates awarded in 2013 went to an African American. More than 1,800 doctorates were awarded in these fields.
In 2013, African Americans earned 6.4 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded to U.S. students. Therefore, African Americans earned about one half the number of doctorates that would be the case if racial parity with the Black population prevailed.
In 2013, there were 176,208 fewer African American students enrolled in all levels higher education than was the case in 2011. But in graduate schools, African American enrollments continue to edge upward.
The new initiative will include five, full-tuition scholarships to the Graduate School of Journalism and a summer internship program in New York for 20 undergraduates from minority-serving institutions.
The Council on Graduate Schools reports that 40,584 African Americans enrolled in graduate programs for the first time in the fall of 2013. Of these, 69 percent were women.
A new report from the Council on Graduate Schools shows that the number of foreign applicants to U.S. graduate schools in 2014 from Africa increased by 9 percent from a year ago. Black acceptances were up 3 percent.
Underrepresented minorities made up 5.2 percent of the applicant pool for graduate programs at Princeton University. There were 196 African Americans in the applicant pool, making up 1.8 percent of all applicants.
Helen Easterling Williams is the former dean of the School of Education and professor of doctoral studies at Azusa Pacific University in California. From 1997 to 2006, Dr. Williams held several leadership posts at the University of Delaware.
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