MIT's graduate student body is extraordinarily diverse along many dimensions; it is highly international and reflects a huge diversity of intellectual disciplines. All of this diversity has been achieved by the independent recruiting and admissions efforts of the academic departments. However, the graduate student body is not diverse along the dimensions of race and gender.
MIT has had considerable success recruiting and retaining women and underrepresented minorities at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level, the outcomes are not nearly so positive; approximately 5.5 percent of our graduate students (or 9.2 percent of our US students) are underrepresented minorities and 30 percent are women. Moreover, these numbers have not changed significantly in the past five years. MIT must build on success at the undergraduate level to attract a diverse and uniquely talented group of graduate students; provide the classroom, research, mentoring, leadership, and co-curricular experiences that make the most of their talents; and the financial means to succeed.
It is important to mention, however, that several departments and programs have partnered with the ODGE to increase aware of and interest in MIT's graduate programs, and those efforts have met with noteworthy success. The greatest challenges with regard to underrepresented minority graduate students remain in the areas of admission, enrollment, and timely graduation.
The ODGE must serve as a catalyst for attracting a more diverse graduate student body into all of our graduate academic programs and provide all students with support in various forms so that they are academically successful. We are guided in our vision by the 2004 faculty resolution that called for MIT to increase the number of underrepresented minority graduate students by a factor of three within a decade.
Our overall strategy consists of two parts: partnering with academic departments to improve the quality of recruiting and mentoring, and developing programs operated from our office to support diversity at MIT.
A key element in our strategy for partnering on recruitment is to convene a group called the Graduate Recruitment and Retention Council. This group includes representatives from all the Schools who are working together to share best practices; coordinate outreach to historically black- and Hispanic-serving colleges and universities; and develop programs that support students once they are here. The leadership team for this council has been meeting to lay the groundwork; the formal council will include representation from every department and academic program.
A second component of our partnering effort is to expand fellowship support for women and underrepresented minority students. This year we have increased the funding for diversity fellowships by over 50 percent by allocating most of the increased payout from endowed, unrestricted fellowship accounts to fellowships for underrepresented minority students. We typically structure these fellowships in partnership with individual academic departments, where our office provides the tuition and the department provides the stipend. We will continue to expand the number of these fellowships so that departments can make financial support offers that are competitive with, or better than, those of our peers.
The Office of the Dean for Graduate Education also operates a set of programs for women and underrepresented minority students that serve either recruiting or educational goals. These include:
Another source of diversity in MIT's graduate student body is the wide range of countries and cultures from which our students come. Approximately 40 percent of our incoming students this academic year are neither US citizens nor permanent residents. The International Students Office provides a high level of support for these students, particularly in helping them with visas and other immigration issues. In the longer term, the ISO should coordinate other types of support, orienting students to American academia and developing programs for their families.
Goals and objectives to improve graduate student diversity in the next one to two years include the following:
Work to increase the number of students who are underrepresented minorities and women graduate students at MIT.
Enhance the quality of experience at MIT for underrepresented minority students and women students with respect to academics, research, and community.
Refer to relevant goals and objectives in the section on Graduate Student Financial Support.
Develop an integrated and coherent communications plan that supports the broader goals and objectives of the Institute.
Strengthen ODGE's web site to feature ongoing programs and unique events and activities designed with the needs of unique, diverse constituencies in mind.
In the context of ODGE's priorities and based on a specific business objective(s), develop materials to support recruitment efforts at other colleges and universities, symposia, and career fairs.
March 2009