Vivian Vidoli, Ph.D., Dean, Division of Graduate Studies, California State
University, Fresno has been working to increase diversity in graduate education
for many years. With her long term perspective, this 1994 CGS/Peterson's award
winner talks about some of the rewards - and challenges - professionals in
graduate work encounter in trying to make institutional changes.
| Q: | How have things changed since you won the Peterson's/CGS award? |
| A: | One major change is the name of the award, which now says "inclusiveness." People have shied away from the use of the word minority, yet ethnic minorities are still the least likely to participate in graduate education. |
| Q: | How are things going in your graduate programs? |
| A: | We have a good strong ethnic minority on our campus - we began to be interested in this in 1980. By the time of the award in 1994, we were sitting at a 30% enrollment of minorities. Today, 44% of our graduate student population is comprised of ethnic minorities. Other underrepresented groups are not included in the numbers - women, handicapped, mostly because we don't have a system to identify them. |
| Q: | How are the students doing? |
| A: | Well the important thing is not just getting in to graduate school, but getting out. We have been successful in retaining our ethnic minority students. In 1994, 25% of our graduate degrees went to ethnic minorities; today it's at 40%. As the numbers of students have grown, so has their sense of strength; they are not alone, they have a sense that they can do. |
| Q: | What changes have you made as the population has increased? |
| A: | We're spending far less time doing some things that we used to do. For example we used to invite parents, relatives and friends when we had an academic awards ceremony. We wanted them to come and celebrate academic talent. Now, the students can gather support in other ways, and point to these examples to their own families. |
| Q: | What changes have you made as the population has increased? |
| A: | We're spending far less time doing some things that we used to do. For example we used to invite parents, relatives and friends when we had an academic awards ceremony. We wanted them to come and celebrate academic talent. Now, the students can gather support in other ways, and point to these examples to their own families.
I discovered this by accident. We hosted a reception for ethnic minority students in a special program. A Mom and daughter attended, and I told the Mom she must be so proud. The daughter had to translate - she was sorry to say that she was expected to get married, not to go on to graduate work. After this we started to include Hispanic faculty to show that they hadn't forgotten their families, their roots. |
| Q: | Other changes you've noted? |
| A: | We're more focused now on strengthening infrastructure. Now we make sure faculty is more active in identifying and sponsoring students, being proactive rather than reactive. |
| Q: | So faculty is involved? |
| A: | Yes, not just in identifying candidates, but in co-authoring proposals. For example, in the California Pre-Doctorate Fellowship program, students are invited to jointly prepare a proposal for a fellowship. Initially, we had to find faculty to participate, now it's part of what they do. |
| Q: | What models do you see out there? |
| A: | The Ronald McNair program faculty are fighting to get students into the program. Faculty members have accepted their role to identify talented students without regard to racial and physical characteristics. They want these students because they are talented. |
| Q: | What has changed for students? |
| A: | There have been three major changes. First, the faculty is more active - the students say "they come to me." Second, students are not as naïve. Students talk to students and they understand more about how to get ahead. Our recruiting is not as aggressive - and students are sophisticated in their competitiveness. Students are finding support systems. Third, we want our students to be more visible. Ph.D. programs don't say "send us your minority students;" they say, "send us your talented students." Here's how we help them. We give them opportunities to make formal presentations at professional discipline-based associations. We have travel money available to support undergrads and graduate students in this area. |
| Q: | Other changes? |
| A: | Our emphasis now is on improving the visibility of this campus. We give our students a sense of where they need to be. Another aspect is the number of minority faculty members. We need more - maybe they'll come back and teach for us once they get the Ph.D. |
| Q: | How do you support students in placement? |
| A: | We are continuing to work with community colleges. Because we are a Master's institution, we can help minority students get jobs, faculty appointments to community colleges. Not all students can go to Harvard and be comfortable. Some of our students have close ties to families that are not always easy to give up. They are looking for a long-term career locally. |
| Q: | Looking to the future, what's next? |
| A: | We still need to do some of the same things, we need resources, we stretch staff as thin as we can. Areas and avenues for minority program funding are drying up and going away, because of laws and interpretation of laws. We have to think more about what is going to work in the community and for the students we serve. |
| Q: | Any final comments? |
| A: | People need to look at what will work, not superficially at the numbers. We have to build in the infrastructure for success. For example, the Mc Nair program attracts first generation students most of whom are from ethnic minority groups who are underrepresented in graduate education. But the McNair program presents a great model because it provides excellent opportunities for these students to be guided by faculty members in a one-on-one situation, to learn how to do collaborative research in their field of study and to master the complexities of preparing for and gaining funded admission to doctoral study. |
