Graduate School Working To Diversify Student Body,
Increase Opportunities For Graduate Fellowships

November 16, 2001
University Park, Pa. – Penn State’s Graduate School continues to explore ways to diversify its student body and increase opportunities for financial assistance through graduate fellowships.

An informational report to the Board of Trustees today (Nov. 16) by Eva Pell, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School, detailed how these efforts are shaping the school’s enrollment and the wide array of quality program offerings.

Based on the most recent report from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, graduate education at Penn State climbed to 8th in national rankings. “While numbers are not an absolute indicator of quality, it is fair to say that they play a part,” Pell said. “After all, students’ feet take them where they can get the best education.”

A total of 90 doctoral, 114 academic master’s and 78 professional master’s degree programs enroll an overall graduate enrollment for the Fall 2001 semester of 10,306 students; 6,289 of those students are enrolled at University Park. Penn State currently has a graduate alumni base of more than 72,000.

Diversity efforts in recruitment, retention, and programming have attracted a total of 2,377 international graduate students to the University from 115 different countries, with the largest numbers of students coming from China, India, South Korea and Taiwan.

African American enrollment in the Graduate School also has been growing steadily. One minority recruitment program is known as the Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP). This program recruits students from across the country and Puerto Rico, particularly targeting historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions.

This program received the United States Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2000.

 “The Graduate School and all the colleges in which graduate degree programs are offered are committed to seeing the number of students from underrepresented groups grow so that the diversity of graduate students will reflect our society,” said Pell. “This is a particular challenge when confronted with the nationwide trend of declining numbers of students from these groups pursuing graduate degrees.”

Helping meet this challenge has been an ad hoc committee on minority recruitment and retention, spearheaded by the school. The Graduate School hosts a conference each year to welcome new and returning graduate students of color and to present a series of workshops to provide tools for graduate school success.

The school also offers an inclusiveness lecture series and a group-mentoring program for faculty members of color to meet with graduate students from underrepresented groups throughout the year.

Another key component to graduate recruitment is financial support. At University Park in 2001, 60 percent of graduate students received an assistantship or fellowship support; at the College of Medicine, 89 percent of enrolled students received full support.

“When the University was successful in eliminating the FICA exemption for all graduate assistants (GAs) – based upon the argument that these GAs were students and not employees – there was considerable savings to the students and also to the University,” said Pell. “The University used that savings to increase the University graduate fellowship number from 40 to 80 between 1999 and 2000.”

Development and research efforts also have resulted in a 34 percent increase in College-administered fellowships since 1996, from 194 to 260.

Additionally, last year the Graduate School Fund for Excellence in Graduate Recruitment directed $573,000 to the colleges and intercollege graduate degree programs to recruit top students.

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Contact: Allison Kessler, Department of Public Information at (814) 865-7517 or akessler@psu.edu.