MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000

• DEAN FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS
  • INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS OFFICE

DEAN FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND BUSINESS STRATEGIES

For the past year, the GSO has continued its strategic collaboration with the Communications Office to develop new business and communications strategies for graduate education at the Institute. This has been time consuming and often tedious work, as we have undertaken detailed exercises to re-examine and re-define fundamental business objectives, opportunities and options for reaching our most important customers, and desired outcomes for all of our efforts. Barrie Gleason, Director of Communications has been "on loan" to the GSO at 25% time for the past year, to assist with this work. Her insights and structured activities have been invaluable in moving our analysis forward.

We have questioned many closely held assumptions about who our customers are, what they need to hear, and how we deliver both services and information to them. This analysis has helped us to identify a number of crosscutting themes that have provided the framework for a set of specific business objectives for the coming year and for a number of immediate action steps to pursue those objectives. Each step along the way resulted from an enormous amount of background work by Barrie Gleason and Associate Dean Blanche Staton, leading to a series of critical meetings with the Dean and other collaborators. Invariably, these meetings have crystallized our vision and have led to new and productive business interactions with Admissions, Career Services, Alumni, Resource Development, Student Services, the Publishing Services Bureau, and other offices. Collectively, these relationships are already redefining the visibility and impact of the Graduate Students Office, and are shaping ways in which we will conduct our business in the future. For GSO staff, this is nothing short of a revolution in how we think about our professional relationships with other operations at MIT and how they work with us towards mutually beneficial objectives, many of which were never identified or pursued before. What we and our collaborators have begun to realize is that by working together in specific ways, no one is relinquishing oversight or responsibility. Rather, our combined efforts have been defining and achieving both currently understood and newly defined objectives. This is analogous to having captured fireflies in a bottle and combining their individual lights into a brighter illumination.

In addition to the growing number and depth of collaborations spawned by our work, to be described more fully below, we have moved forward aggressively to articulate key messages about graduate education at MIT. Barrie Gleason, Dean Staton, and Dean Colbert have met with representatives from six academic departments; and Ms. Gleason and Dean Staton have held a series of focus group discussions with various graduate student interest groups. We are planning with the Alumni Association to have similar discussions in the coming academic year with groups of recent alumni/ae. These discussions have been effective in promoting new thinking about graduate students and community at MIT, so effective that we have decided to extend the series of meetings to include the remaining academic departments.

As this work moves towards its completion, it has benefits for the Institute, for the Communications Office and for the Graduate Students Office. For the Institute, this work is crystallizing a model for collaborative leadership across many administrative operations, and the active collaborations with the GSO are demonstrating the power of the approach. This work is also promoting and contributing to the growing awareness of "graduate community" at MIT and requirements for its success. Finally, the GSO is poised to build a new generation of communication resources to help departments attract graduate students and to better support their presence in this community.

For the Communications Office and related operations, this work is defining a new area of business that can be exported to other departments and operations at MIT. A suite of analytical tools and processes is being developed that can help others to examine, modify, and rebuild communications and business strategies in a coherent manner. It seems most likely that this approach will work best when promoted by a senior officer, who can ensure that his or her organization understands the depth of commitment at the top to a comprehensive overhauling of business priorities and communication strategies.

The value for the Graduate Students Office is obvious. We will have defined a new vision and new priorities for our business and our customers, will have developed a coherent set of messages that will be appropriate Institute-wide, and will have effected new and more effective business collaborations with other administrative operations. When this work has been substantially completed in the coming year, the Graduate Students Office should be able to field publications, key messages, and critical services that are timely and that are appropriately tuned to each of our customers.

Through the successful efforts of the past year, the GSO has a good idea of what the key messages about graduate education should be, and has defined business priorities associated with our major publications and web presence. The Publishing Services Bureau will be a critical collaborator and resource for the next phase of work, along with colleagues who are helping to develop a detailed information mapping for graduate education.

COLLABORATION WITH OTHER AREAS

As business strategies have been examined and re-prioritized, opportunities for collaborative work with other administrative operations have developed in the past year. During this period, the GSO initiated twelve such efforts. Some have been short-term projects that were begun and completed, while the most intensive efforts will require a detailed specification of desired outcomes and careful cost justification.

Short-term Projects

Celebrating Graduate Women

On April 4 a first-of-its-kind event was held in Building E15, to celebrate the presence and contributions of graduate women at MIT. Co-sponsored by the GSO, the MIT Women’s League, and the Spouses and Partners Group, this very successful event attracted at least 275 participants, comprised of 235 students, 11 faculty and 11 senior administrators and luminaries. The event provided a singular opportunity to contribute to a sense of community by promoting networking among women at MIT. Those in attendance were asked to give feedback about which existing GSO services they value, and to identify new services they would appreciate.

Graduate Degree Listing

At the request of the Communications Office, the GSO and the graduate administrator group collected, reviewed and revised the first comprehensive listing since 1983 of graduate degrees offered by Institute departments and programs. This seemingly simple task proved far more complex than anticipated, since many departments had not officially reviewed their degree specifications in years. The final list will be published in Fall 2000 as a part of the MIT Bulletin.

Workshops and Seminars

A variety of informational workshops, meetings and seminars were held with Disabilities Services, the Graduate Administrators Roundtable, and the Graduate Student Council. These activities were focused on developing better understanding of the GSO’s business and communication opportunities with respect to these groups.

A Letter to Recent Graduate Alumni/Alumnae

The Alumni Association and the Resource Development Office worked with the GSO to experiment with a new fund raising approach focused on graduate students who have completed their degrees within the past six years. The objective was to encourage giving for institutional-level goals in addition to traditional gifts to departments and laboratories. A letter from Dean Colbert to recent graduate-degree holders stressed themes relevant to graduate community at MIT and emphasized several mechanisms by which this constituency can direct gifts towards those objectives. Few, if any, universities have pursued graduate alumni/ae for giving in this manner. If this initial effort yields promising results, then the Institute may have opened a new avenue for alumni development. The timing of this initiative seems propitious, since the Institute is in the process of increasing housing available to graduate students and is moving rapidly to build and strengthen graduate students’ sense of community. Success in these areas might generate greater allegiance to the Institute and enhance future prospects for graduate participation in alumni affairs and giving.

Support to Libraries for University Microfilms Transition

During the past year, the costs to graduate students to archive thesis abstracts with Dissertation Abstracts International rose from $25 to $50 in January 1999. As of January 2000, it rose again to $55. The Libraries have subsidized most of the abstracting fee for the students since 1990, but with increasing difficulty due to budget constraints. Passing the increased fee on to students was inevitable, but the GSO agreed to mitigate the impact by providing a one-time $1,500 subsidy to the Libraries.

Strategic Collaboration Projects

Graduate Information Landscape

Work began this past year on a major business priority that requires close collaboration with ODSUE IT, the Publishing Services Bureau, and the graduate administrators. The "Information Landscape" project seeks to provide detailed descriptors of the content of GSO publications and the relationships among them. In the analytical phase of this work, a crosscutting team deconstructed each section of the Graduate Education Manual, the Practical Planning Guide and other GSO publications. We examined content, clarity of presentation, responsibility for maintenance of the material, and the relationship of each section’s content to other sections and to other know publications around MIT. Ultimately, each section will be incorporated into a publishing database that will permit us to organize information flexibly into an infinite range of publications, each tailored to a specific audience or purpose.

In the coming year, we expect to complete the information mapping, define several targeted publications, and begin producing a new and more focused set of marketing and recruiting materials.

Graduate Women’s Group

Two years ago, a collaborative effort was started between Counseling and Support services and the GSO to provide a support group for graduate women. In the past year, that effort developed into the bimonthly Graduate Women’s Group. Each lunchtime discussion is facilitated jointly by the Associate Dean for Graduate Students and the Program Administrator in Counseling and Support Services, and has a theme that is determined by participants based on their needs, issues and concerns. This past spring, the GSO sponsored a one-day retreat at Endicott House, facilitated by a member of the Consulting and Training Team. The focus of discussion was on creating a repertoire of practical and results oriented approaches to communication in difficult situations.

Graduate Admissions Database

Plans were discussed with the Admissions Office to add a number of data fields to the admissions database. These fields would comprise contact information from GSO recruitment visits around the nation, which is now collected and maintained in a local database in the GSO. Before undertaking this project, a backlog of existing work needed to be closed out. Therefore, the GSO underwrote costs for an additional programmer for the spring term 2000 to assist in completing the work and paving the way inclusion of data fields requested for our recruitment needs. We anticipate that these accommodations will be in place for the fall 2000 recruitment season.

Alumni/Alumnae Association

In a series of discussions with staff from the Alumni Office, the GSO reviewed its hopes for improved and expanded communication with MIT graduate alumni and alumnae. Conversations produced a number of action items, including letters to this group from Dean Colbert, from President Vest and from departments. Plans were made to create a series of focus-group discussions with active alumni/ae clubs nationally and internationally, seeking their views about graduate education at MIT and how it appears to be marketed.

Publishing Services Bureau

Discussions were begun to define a range of print and web based projects to address specific GSO business priorities for the 2000—2001 year.

Resource Development

The GSO articulated goals and objectives for the campaign with regard to graduate fellowships. A number of specific messages were incorporated into draft campaign literature for the graduate fellowship project. Going forward, plans were made to meet on a regular basis throughout the coming year with the Director of Communications, to keep informed or ongoing work and to provide the GSO with opportunities to contribute to campaign activities.

OFFICE OPERATIONS

With support and encouragement from management, both GSO professional and support staff have benefited from MIT’s training and development program. Staff members took courses to enhance job-related skills and competencies in areas such as SAP usage, computer literacy, collaborative leadership, and meeting facilitation. Additionally, staff cross training was initiated to produce a more flexible and adaptive for task completion and achievement of business objectives.

New practices were designed and implemented to provide better in-office documentation of financial transactions, including new forms to describe GSO funded student activities and improved forms to explain more fully details of certain business transactions.

PROGRAMS AND SERVICES FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Power Lunch

This monthly series of luncheon seminars is designed to promote the academic, professional and personal development of students of color. It also provides an opportunity for students from diverse academic departments to develop supportive peer relationships, to share experiences, insights and strategies for managing the challenges of graduate work. In the past year, the GSO identified a broad range of presenters to share their expertise with the students. Among these were speakers on financial planning, business start-up, preparing for doctoral qualifying examinations, building a professional support network, managing stress, and negotiating conflict.

Graduate Women’s Group

Two years ago, a collaborative effort between the Associate Dean for Counseling and Support Services and the Associate Dean for Graduate Students began. Its objective was to provide a supportive community for graduate women, and began with a series of lunch meetings for graduate women. Participation doubled during the past year, with an average of 15 women attending biweekly lunch discussions held throughout the academic year. Each discussion centers on a theme determined by t he students and based on their needs, issues and concerns. Activities culminated in a one-day retreat at Endicott House to develop strategies to address several ongoing concerns. A member of MIT’s Performance Consulting and Training Team facilitated the retreat.

Welcoming Receptions for New Graduate Women and for Students of Color

The GSO continued its tradition of sponsoring receptions to introduce new graduate women and new students of color to their peers and to acquaint them with critical resource offices, individuals and programs. The receptions promote networking, reduce perceptions of isolation, and identify sources of support.

Guest Speaker

In February, The GSO brought Dr. Grace Carroll to MIT for a 2-day visit, which included a book talk and several small-group seminars. This initiative was a response related to a number of race- related concerns expressed by graduate students of color. Referencing her recently published book, Environmental Stress and African Americans: The Other Side of the Moon, Dr. Carroll discussed race as a stress factor for students and offered a variety of coping strategies.

Graduate Women’s Book Club

The GSO’s financial support of this club, whose members emerged from the Graduate Women’s Group, is one expression of the office’s mission to enhance the cultural experience of graduate students. The club began with 3 or 4 students sharing books as a way of minimizing their expense. However, that approach limited the number of students who could participate and reduced the frequency of meetings. By underwriting the cost to acquire books, the GSO removed the financial obstacle, and participation in the club immediately tripled. At the end of the academic year, about 15 women were gathering at 2 to 3 month intervals to discuss and critique books of various genres, build friendships, and share ideas.

PROGRAMS AND SERVICES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

The GSO continues to support student life in the broadest sense by committing resources to various undergraduate activities. This past year, the office provided funding for 14 events and activities. Moreover, GSO administrators and staff are called upon routinely to serve informally as academic, pre-professional and career advisors.

GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS OFFICE

The Fellowships Office serves as the local fiscal agent for a wide variety of Federal, foundation, corporate, and individual or family funds in support of graduate students. The largest of these resources continue to be the National Science Foundation Fellowship (NSF), the National Defense Science and Engineering Education Grant (NDSEG) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) award. During the past year, the two government-based fellowships supported 298 active fellows, with an additional 70 on reserve status. The HHMI supported 51 of these active fellows.

The chart below summarizes NAF trends at MIT for the past five years:

In the past year, the Fellowships Office was delegated administrative responsibility for the GEM Fellowship (National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science), which is the nation’s largest provider of graduate funding for Master’s Degree programs. Additionally, the Fellowships Office administers the newly initiated Ford Foundation and Ford Motor Company Fellowship Fund, which exposes students to the Ford professional environment and the excitement of the practice of engineering and manufacturing.

A controversy arose this past year with the Hertz Foundation over the issue of supplemental support for Hertz Fellows. Foundation support for its fellows consists of a $25,000 stipend and a modest tuition allowance that produces a significant shortfall. Some departments provide partial research assistantships to cover the entire shortfall, while others structure supplemental support to require students tot pay a portion of the shortfall from the stipend income. In objecting to that latter practice, the Hertz Foundation sought to eliminate differences among departments in how its fellowship would be administered. In the end, the Foundation agreed that each department can continue to use its internal standards to determine the maximal level of stipend income, but that incoming Hertz Fellows would be told in advance about departmental policies.

The annual Tax Workshop for citizens and permanent residents was again sponsored by the GSO and held during late February. Led by Frederick I. Crowley of the Comptroller’s Accounting Office, the workshop continues to be a timely and valuable service to graduate students in helping them to understand and meet their tax obligations.

The GSO, in collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL), again cosponsored the annual Orientation Workshop for Graduate Teaching Staff. Held at the beginning of the Fall Term, the workshop encourages and supports graduate teaching effectiveness. It provides opportunities for new and continuing graduate teaching assistants to better understand the complexities of their responsibilities, and gives them practical advice about a range of issues that they will face in their teaching assignments.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS OFFICE

The mission of the International Students Office is to help the international student population at MIT fulfill their academic goals by providing services and support programs which facilitate their adjustment to the new academic and cultural environment. The Office assists students in maintaining their legal status in the United States, provides support for their dependents, and promotes their interaction with and integration into the MIT community at large. In addition, the ISO interfaces with all MIT offices, advocating for awareness in the Community of issues salient to the MIT International Student.

Federally mandated legislation drove much of the agenda in the ISO during the 1999—2000 year. While the ISO continued its routine work with respect to legal admission, orientation, advising. and programming for the international student, all efforts were set against the backdrop of the impending implementation of the Coordinated Interagency Partnership Regulating International Students (CIPRIS) program. (The CIPRIS program is part of an omnibus immigration bill passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996.) CIPRIS will require International Offices to track and electronically report specific data to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on a regular basis. With CIPRIS in mind, the ISO petitioned Information Systems for new computer hardware and in late January managed to secure four new G-4 Macintosh computers for the office. The upgrade has made it possible to begin the process of re-building the ISO database for more efficient data collection and INS forms production. In March, the ISO submitted a proposal to ODSUE IT (now known as Student Services Information Technology) to evaluate, fund and undertake the ISO Database Project so that MIT’s ISO will be able to track international students and provide required data and reports to the INS. This project was approved by the Provost’s Office, and currently Phase One, which has evaluated ISO needs, MITSIS access requirements, and CIPRIS mandates, is near completion. When this project comes to fruition some time in the summer of 2001, the ISO will have the ability to comply with government mandates. In addition, an integrated database will also allow the ISO to streamline and even eliminate some of its more routine, labor intensive tasks, thereby affording the Office the ability to expand and improve the services outlined below.

The ISO continues to play a pivotal role in the legal aspects of Admissions which enables International students admitted to MIT to secure their visas, arrive in a timely fashion, and be both culturally and legally oriented to life in the US and at MIT. The sheer volume of our admissions work increased quite dramatically in 1999—2000. We had an overall increase in enrollment numbers from 2,198 to 2,386. (See chart attached) And this number does not include our exploding number of Visiting Students and Special Students, which increased to approximately 100 over the course of the year. Admissions has become technically more complex over the past two years with the expanding number of new academic programs and alliances which specifically target international students. The Systems Design Management program, for example, is particularly appealing to international companies. Tuition rates and physical participation in the SDM program, however, are not uniform as they depend upon the agreements with individual employers. The Masters of Engineering Programs, which have been popular with internationals, have added another layer of complexity in our efforts to streamline admissions processes. MIT’s early forays into the Distance Learning arena also poses current and future immigration hurdles. As every new program and alliance has its own admission idiosyncrasies, the ISO has become proficient in applying legal admissions requirements to new realities. Having the assistance of Carlene Green (the staff we have shared with the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences over the past five years), in addition to having the entire ISO staff knowledgeable about Admission processing, has made it possible to deal with the expanding variety and scope of MIT academic programs which admit foreign nationals.

Advising remains at the core of the ISO’s responsibility to the MIT International Student. Thousands of students have received advice on immigration procedures and regulations for travelling, employment, change of visa status, etc. By individual appointment, as well as through the use of our increasingly more sophisticated web-site and e-mail, prospective students, admitted students, current students, and graduated students (who seek our counsel long after commencement!), the three advisors have been kept busy providing legal and personal advice. While ostensibly seeking ISO expertise because INS regulations require it, students also come to the ISO with underlying concerns about cultural adjustment and worries about political tensions back home. In this important advising role, the ISO is a place to seek technical information, clarification, advice, comfort, and even protection. Among our international students this year, we have seen a distressing and significant increase in cases involving mental health issues, domestic violence, and academic dishonesty. International Advisors have needed to hone their knowledge of Institute policy and resources with respect to these areas, while being mindful of the Immigration dilemmas they present. As in the past, advisors have continued to visit students who have been hospitalized, comfort students grieving the loss of a loved one back home, and intervene, on behalf of troubled students, with immigration and consular officials.

All international students, regardless of age, degree program, or familiarity with life in the US, undergo a period of cultural adjustment. They, and their dependents, require information about their new surroundings, culture, and community. This year for the first time, we have devoted a special section of our web-site to incoming international students and their families. We continue to refine it on a weekly basis. Through the extensive use of the Web and e-mail, incoming students are now able to address many of their practical concerns prior to arrival to the US. We will be evaluating the efficacy of this new service with our incoming students in the fall. Once students arrive on campus, we have provided individual and small group orientation sessions to ALL incoming internationals, daily from mid-August to September. The ISO is, in fact, legally required to provide immigration information to all new students and to verify that they are in appropriate legal status. We have expanded this mandated orientation to include overall orientation to Boston and MIT culture. Complementing our required orientation, were a number of social events open to the entire international community. These events included Coffee Hours, presentations by the Medical Department, the Libraries, the Campus Police and culminated with an International Student Panel, a Faculty Panel, and the International Open House. For two years running now, the ISO has been solely responsible for Undergraduate International Orientation. The ISO staff and international upperclassmen worked together this year to welcome new students with events such as a pancake breakfast, a Boston "Duck" Tour, an international barbecue and a cross-cultural workshop. We hope to secure funding to augment this type of programming in the future.

The Host to International Students Program (HISP) has remained vital in providing new students with supportive emotional and social ties to the MIT community. Kate Baty, the Coordinator of the program, has been tireless this year in her efforts to develop and implement new programs and events. In addition to the traditional Welcome Picnic for new students and their host families, Kate and the ISO staff organized potluck dinners for students and host families, which encouraged and solidified cross-cultural relationships within the MIT community. Kate continued to be actively involved with the Mentor Program, which matches incoming international freshman with upperclassmen before they arrive. The relationship develops between student and mentor, with airport pick up and a bevy of social activities and mentor-organized programming during the first month after arrival. The Mentor Program has been staffed and organized entirely by volunteer students, along with volunteer co-founder Paulette Schwartz. As we begin the second year of the program, we have found that the original protegees provide the Program with a pool of committed mentors for the new incoming class, a true testament to the success of the program. The ISO will seek ways, financial and other, to support and expand this invaluable initiative. In the coming year, we plan to explore the feasibility of a mentor program for graduate international students.

The ISO continued to offer and sponsor workshops of special interest to MIT International Students during IAP. Options for internships and employment in the US have always been of great concern. Danielle Guichard-Ashbrook presented two workshops covering the laws that regulate the employment of F-1 and J-1 student visa holders as they relate to jobs at MIT, summer internships off-campus, and work possibilities after graduation. An Immigration attorney and labor law attorney with start-up company expertise presented a workshop that highlighted the legal, practical, and ethical issues involved in starting a company in the US. A prominent Boston area immigration attorney presented an informative talk on future visa options when student visa eligibility ends. MIT’s Assistant Controller, Fred Crowley, once again presented a critical workshop about federal and state tax filing requirements for international students. All of these IAP workshops were extremely well attended, and some even oversubscribed. Next year, the ISO hopes to use the IAP period to organize and provide programming for internationals around the difficult, yet very important issues of academic dishonesty and domestic violence.

Personnel

In December 1999, Milena Levak retired as Director and Associate Dean of the ISO. Since that time Danielle Guichard-Ashbrook has been the Acting Director and Associate Dean. Maria Brennan has doubled her efforts to undertake some of the Assistant Dean responsibilities. In January, the ISO hired Elizabeth Singh, a recent graduate of the Lesley School of Intercultural Relations, as a 6-month temporary International Student Advisor. She will be replaced in August 2000 by another one-year temporary hire. After the management of the ISO is established, a permanent Advisor will be hired to bring us to our full compliment of International Advisors in the Office. Kate Baty has ably continued as Host Family Coordinator and has also taken on the unheralded role of non-immigration advising to many undergraduate internationals. Mina Xanthopolis continued as our Senior Staff Assistant, but announced her resignation in late June 2000. Carlene Green, our half year support staff will replace her and come aboard as a full-time staff member in July 2000. A new temporary worker, Anita Di Marco, is filling in as our much-needed receptionist and has quickly acquired some basic immigration knowledge. The ISO intends to advocate strongly that the receptionist be made a permanent position on the staff. Following an eight month vacancy, the I

SO hired Andrew Wang as a professional Technical Support Specialist in February 2000. Andrew has been absolutely critical in the negotiations with the Student Services Information Technology team regarding the ISO Database Project and meets weekly with the IT consulting group overseeing the project. As a member of the ISO staff, he will do much of the programming and beta testing of the new database at each stage of implementation. Andrew has also re-vamped our web-site in the short time he has been on board, adding new features and targeting specific groups of our population. He will continue to look for ways to make technology work for the ISO.

Professional Activities and Awards

The ISO staff continued to be regionally and nationally recognized by their colleagues in the field. At the November Regional NAFSA Conference in Rhode Island, Kate Baty received an Outstanding Service award to acknowledge her many years of selfless service to the international community. Danielle Guichard-Ashbrook was selected to present, along with a criminal defense attorney, a session entitled, " Crimes and Misdemeanors: International Students In Trouble with the Law!" at the Regional Conference. At the Spring Immigration Workshop at the University of New Hampshire, Maria Brennan presented for the first time. She was part of a team giving a workshop on basic F-1 student regulations. At the National NAFSA Conference in San Diego, Danielle chaired and presented an all-day workshop in advanced student regulations to over 150 international advisors and directors from across the country and Canada. She was part of a team of three who developed the curriculum for this workshop which in now the national model for all workshops of this type. For these efforts, she was recognized nationally with a Distinguished Service Award, presented to her in San Diego.

Student Recruitment Activities

Over the past year, the GSO’s recruitment efforts have included travel to 15 states and Puerto Rico. During these travels, over 27 schools were visited, and 4 major conferences attended, ensuring MIT’s visibility as an institution seeking the best students for its graduate programs.

Recruitment efforts included graduate school fairs, school visits and information booths at national meetings and conferences. This year, 10 schools that had not been visited in the past several years were added to the recruitment schedule, thus re-establishing ties and expanding our recruitment network. Among these schools were several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and universities within the Hispanic Alliance of Colleges and Universities (HACU) where MIT alumni and alumnae are either faculty or administrators. Also included were four universities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. MIT was represented by the GSO at several conferences including those sponsored by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) in Charlotte, NC; the National Minority Research Symposium (NMRS) in Phoenix, AZ, which includes the MARC and MBRS national scholars programs; the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (ShiPE), in Washington, DC; and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), in Orlando, FL. Each conference offered MIT opportunities to reach the most talented undergraduates in technical and research fields, as well as opportunities to interact with faculty and administrators from their institutions.

Two external recruitment efforts were new last year, the NSF/Minority Graduate Education (MGE) Northeast Alliance and the Ford-MIT-HBCU Initiative. The NSF/MGE effort partners Boston University, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University and the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts with several predominantly minority institutions. Participating universities are Jackson State, Lincoln, Long Island, Medgar Evers, and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. Working collectively, the Alliance hopes to increase the number of students from participating schools who enroll in doctoral programs in New England. The Ford initiative shares the graduate education objective, but has a more proprietary long-term interest in convincing more minorities to consider a career with Ford. HBCU’s involved in this program include Clark Atlanta University, Florida A&M, Hampton, Howard, Tennessee State, Tuskeegee, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.

The GSO continues to see growing departmental interest in additional efforts to actively recruit all students, especially minorities and women. Several departments have conferred with GSO staff about approaches to which they might contribute. Among those discussed have been direct faculty participation in recruitment trips, involvement of selected departmental representatives in important national meetings, and collaboration with the Summer Research Program (MSRP) to identify and sponsor summer interns.

MIT Summer Research Program

Summer 1999 marked the 14^th consecutive year of the program, with 31 participants. Two participants were "guests" of the program, having been identified and recruited solely through departmental efforts. Interns conducted research in 12 departments and centers, with 28 faculty members volunteering to serve as mentors. Similarly, collaboration with the Center for Innovation in Product Development (CIPD) that began in 1998 continued to provide summer research experience for a number of interns. In that collaboration, the CIPD absorbed all program costs.

By the end of the academic year, six past participants of the MSRP had been admitted to graduate programs at MIT, a number equal to that of the prior year. We are delighted that the MSRP continues to be successful in encouraging interns to matriculate into graduate science and engineering programs. We are even more delighted that MIT has admitted more than 12% of those who have participated.

Isaac M. Colbert

WOMEN, FOREIGN NATIONAL AND MINORITY GRADUATE ENROLLMENT, AY 1974 TO AY 1999

GRADUATE STUDENT ENROLLMENT, FALL 2000

* "Minority" refers to underrepresented groups: African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Other Hispanics and Puerto Ricans.

** "Non-resident" refers to students who are in non-resident doctoral dissertation status.

MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000