BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL MINORITY RECRUITING AND GRADUATING PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS

The Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of New Orleans has been recruiting minority geoscience majors for 32 years. As a result of that effort, minority students make up between 25 and 50% of our approximately 50 undergraduates each year. A significant number of our graduating seniors are minority students. The total number of all students graduating each year is relatively small, approximately 6-8 per year and, on average, 2-3 of those will be African American and 1-2 will be Native American or Hispanic. In the past few years, minority students have been graduating at a higher rate than their majority classmates and the minority students have had the highest GPA's in the department. In an effort to increase our overall graduation rates, we have taken a closer look at our minority program to determine what works. Our minority freshmen have access to scholarships that the majority students to not have their first year, but after that all of our students have equal access to scholarships, tutors, mentors, and the like. We provide a nurturing environment for all of our students. Our majority students seldom come into geoscience straight out of high school so they appear to be more self motivated when they do decide to become majors and, as a result, they may not get mentored as closely as the high school recruits from our minority program but that does not appear to be a big difference. One characteristic of our African American students that appears to help them considerably over their majority counterparts is their insistence that they be treated fairly and with respect by the University. This is a direct result of the civil rights movement and how the New Orleans schools prepare students for the future. In effect, it leads the minority students to question how a particular teacher might assign grades and helps to catch errors that majority students often accept without question. We have worked to provide an environment where all of our students feel that they benefit from our minority program and we encourage our students and faculty to work together to promote the success of the program.