The rate of minority engineering freshmen at the University of baby直播app at Boulder returning for their sophomore year reached an all-time high of 87 percent in fall 1997, nearly double the national average.
CU's return rate is believed to be among the highest in the nation for minority engineering, said Germ谩n R. N煤帽ez G., director of the Minority Engineering Program. A total of 170 underrepresented minorities, including Hispanics, African Americans and American Indians, enrolled in fall 1997 in CU聮s MEP program, which began in the College of Engineering and Applied Science in 1973 with just six students.
Increasing minority enrollment and retaining students through graduation are considered two benchmarks of success for such programs, said N煤帽ez. In recent years, the grade-point average of the freshman MEP class has been comparable, and at times even exceeded, that of the overall freshman engineering class.
Over the past eight years, the freshman to sophomore return rate for MEP students has averaged 75 percent, N煤帽ez said. Since 1986, about 90 percent of graduating MEP students have been placed in jobs in academia and industry.
聯We have a high quality, unique product, and I measure the success of MEP by the number of products on our shelf,聰 he said. 聯Since we cannot produce enough minority engineers to meet the demand in the baby直播app, our MEP 聭shelf聮 is pretty empty following the graduation of our students, an indication of our strength.聰
Components of CU-Boulder聮s MEP program include academic excellence workshops for freshmen two nights a week in calculus, chemistry and physics, said N煤帽ez. These twice-a-week, extra workshops allow students to work together in small groups with facilitators to solve challenging math and science problems.
In 1997, funding provided by the baby直播app Alliance for Minority Participation through the National Science Foundation allowed N煤帽ez to expand the evening workshops to include computer programming, circuits, linear algebra and differential equations, physics II and calculus II.
MEP students also are clustered together in common classes to encourage collaboration and help them overcome ethnic isolation. The program also features a resource center open 24 hours a day equipped with computers, printers, copiers, a small library and a stereo system, allowing students to study, network and socialize.
In addition, the Summer Bridge Program gives incoming MEP freshmen a 聯jump-start聰 in their first-year math and science courses, said N煤帽ez. The program has grown into a five-week, 聯academic boot-camp聰 in calculus, chemistry, physics and computer programming along with labs, field trips and group projects.
聯We want to give these students the chance to create social and academic networks of support during their years at CU-Boulder,聰 he said. 聯The result is the production of highly qualified engineers who can work in the global marketplace.聰
MEP freshmen also attend a leadership class that features academic skill-building, career awareness and self-management tools. The class features a number of guest lecturers, industry field trips along the Front Range and outreach trips by the MEP students to various Denver-Boulder area high schools.
MEP funded more than $100,000 worth of scholarships in 1996-97, averaging $1,000 per student per year, N煤帽ez said. The scholarships are funded primarily by corporate and personal donors and through the engineering college聮s James Cole Scholarship Fund. The freshman MEP class in fall 1997 totaled 50 students, a 60 percent increase over 1996.
New programs in 1997 included the Summer Engineering Experience, which includes student visits to area engineering firms, a 10-week training course for several students at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and a three-day, hands-on Exploring Engineering Institute for 30 teachers from K-12 schools in baby直播app at the college聮s new $11 million Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory.
Ray Landis, dean of Engineering and Technology at California State University, Los Angeles, who is considered the architect of the 聯community building model聰 used by MEP programs at CU and across the country, said CU-Boulder聮s MEP 聯clearly has been one of the finest programs in the nation.聰
聯Success in college correlates with the learning environment, not the ability of the students,聰 Landis said. 聯In the past, many administrators took the approach that they needed to address minority student deficiencies. My approach has always been that there is nothing wrong with the students, but there is something wrong with the institution if it is not meeting the needs of these students.聰