Tour for Diversity in Medicine, Aetna Foundation Launch Bus Tour to Attract Minority Students to Medicine

Aetna Foundation Press Release
Jan. 27, 2012, 9:00 a.m. EST

-- Doctors, Dentists to Visit Five Historically Black Colleges in South to Advise, Mentor Future Health Care Providers --

HARTFORD, Conn., Jan 27, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Tour for Diversity in Medicine, a new initiative from several young Boston- and Chicago-based physicians, has revved up for its inaugural bus tour in February to take 11 doctors, dentists and medical school students from minority populations to five historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the South to offer a full day of premedical enrichment activities to the schools' students.

Made possible with a $210,000 award from the Aetna Foundation, Tour for Diversity in Medicine aims to provide college students of color with a wide range of information and advice to plan for careers in medicine and dentistry and ultimately diversify the health care profession. Although minority populations comprise more than 26 percent of the U.S. population, African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans combined represent only about 6 percent of practicing physicians and 5 percent of dentists.

Alden Landry, M.D., an emergency room physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and co-director of Tour for Diversity in Medicine, said, "Our goal is to increase interest in health care as careers for students from minority populations and help them overcome perceived barriers to medical and dental school, such as high tuition costs, long training and a challenging application process. By offering workshops with established health care practitioners from similar backgrounds to theirs, we believe we can open the pipeline for talented young people of color who can make a significant difference in improving health care in the U.S."

Full Release: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tour-for-diversity-in-medicine-aetna-foundation-launch-bus-tour-to-attract-minority-students-to-medicine-2012-01-27

Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher Punishments

Education Week
By Nirvi Shah
Published Online: October 5, 2011

Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group.
And school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically, said Daniel J. Losen, the report’s author and the senior education law and policy associate at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he said there is no evidence that banishing some students will improve the education of classmates still in school, while studies have show that punishing students increases their risk of dropping out.

Full Story: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/05/07discipline_ep.h31.html?r=132999313

The “Reverse Discrimination Sentiment”

The Chronicle of Higher Education April 5, 2011, 5:33 pm By Richard Kahlenberg As Peter Schmidt reported in The Chronicle, new research to be presented at the American Educational Research Association next week finds that Americans “see minority students as having much greater advantages in seeking access to college than is actually the case.” The findings appear to suggest that the existence of affirmative action at highly selective institution generates a general (and factually incorrect) sense among whites that minority students are actually more likely to have access to college generally. The findings come from a paper entitled, “The Blind Side: Americans’ Perceptions of Inequalities in College Access,” authored by Indiana University sociology professor Brian Powell and doctoral students Kristin M. Jordan and Oren Pizmony-Levy. The authors, using data from a 2007 survey by Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, find, as reported by Schmidt, that “nearly a fourth of respondents said qualified students who are racial and ethnicity minorities have more opportunity to attend college than others. Just under a fifth said students from low-income families have an advantage over others, and about a tenth said qualified students from middle-class families are better off than others when it comes to college access.” Full Story: http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-%e2%80%9creverse-discrimination-sentiment%e2%80%9d/29153?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Students walk out of UC San Diego teach-in

Los Angeles Times
By Larry Gordon
February 25, 2010

Reporting from San Diego - A student walkout Wednesday disrupted a UC San Diego teach-in that was intended to promote tolerance in the wake of two recent racially charged incidents. Many of those involved said the protest showed how difficult it will be for the beachside campus to overcome long-standing concerns about the small number of African American students enrolled there.More than 1,200 students, faculty and staff packed an auditorium in the student center for the teach-in, which campus administrators organized in response to the incidents, including an off-campus party Feb. 15 that mocked Black History Month. But halfway through the planned two-hour session, hundreds of students walked out. The students, who were joined by many others during the afternoon, held their own noisy but peaceful rally outside the building, calling on UC San Diego leaders to improve conditions for minority students and boost their numbers.

Full Story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucsd25-2010feb25,0,4256213.story

Some Public Colleges and Universities Are Making Gains, Closing Gaps in Graduation Rates for Minority Students

The Education Trust
News Release
Contact info:
Lauren Stephens 202/293-1217 x373

Data from College Results Online Show Progress at Various Institutions Throughout the United States

WASHINGTON (January 28, 2010) – When choosing a college, many young people often make their decision based on popularity and prestige. What they may not consider is the school’s track record in actually graduating students.
For students of color, this issue is particularly important: Nationally, only about 40 percent of underrepresented minority, or URM, students (African American, Latino, and Native American) earn a bachelor’s degree within six years. The figure for nonminority students is more than 60 percent. But according to two briefs released today by The Education Trust, many institutions of varying types are ensuring that far more young Americans of color earn a degree.
“Top Gainers” and “Top Gap Closers” highlight public institutions nationwide that have made the biggest improvements in these areas. For example, since 2002:
Georgia State University—a research university in downtown Atlanta—boosted its minority graduation rate by 18.4 percentage points. In 2002, only 32.3 percent of minority students graduated in six years. By 2007, that rate had increased to 50.7 percent—which exceeds the school’s non-minority graduation rate of 45.5 percent. The university ranks fifth nationwide in the number of bachelor’s degrees granted to African-American students, according to Diverse magazine.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, a school with a relatively small population of minority students, improved its URM graduation rate by 11.5 percentage points to 60.4 percent. At the same time, their gap between non-URM and URM students narrowed by 8.9 points. In 2007, Wisconsin’s minority students graduated at almost 20 percentage points above the national average.
The URM graduation rate at rural Western Oregon University jumped from 17.5 percent in 2002 to 42.3 percent in 2007. Now, the gap between minority graduation rates and nonminority graduation rates at this public liberal arts college is just 3.1 percentage points.
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey—a suburban campus located near Atlantic City—increased its URM graduation rate by 7.5 percentage points, improving to 58.5 percent in 2007.
“Nationwide, two-thirds of minority students who attend a four-year college attend a public institution,” said Christina Theokas, director of research at The Education Trust and coauthor of the briefs. “Given their mission to serve the higher education needs of their communities and their states, it’s critical for public institutions to not just provide access to these students but also help more of them succeed. The good news is that some are taking that charge seriously.”
Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and College Results Online—a unique Web-based tool that allows the public to view college graduation rates by race, ethnicity, and gender—the studies found that about 60 percent of public four-year colleges have seen improved graduation rates for students of color since 2002. At the same time, 46 percent of these institutions narrowed the graduation-rate gap between minority and nonminority students. The significant gains made by these schools in boosting minority student success and closing gaps are not just happenstance. The public colleges and universities recognized in these briefs have made success for all students—especially minorities—a primary focus.
At Georgia State, for example, minority students now graduate at rates higher than their nonminority classmates, putting them atop the list of best improvers in each of the two Ed Trust briefs. According to Ron Henry, the school’s former provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, these gains came first and foremost by focusing on data. Henry and his colleagues used data to identify various potholes on the path to a bachelor’s degree for GSU students, from high failure rates in introductory courses to high dropout rates between the sophomore and junior years, when students transition into courses for their majors.
Although GSU took a campuswide approach to improving outcomes for all students, when administrators disaggregated the data, they found that some programs were particularly effective for minority students. For example, first-year learning communities—where faculty members coordinate teaching two or more courses and often serve as advisers to the same group of students—were instrumental in improving retention rates between the freshman and sophomore years by five to six percentage points for all students. But for minority students, these rates rose by ten to 12 percentage points.
“Georgia State’s example demonstrates that public institutions can strive for access and success simultaneously. Institutions should see these as twin goals, not an either-or proposition,” said Jennifer Engle, assistant director of higher education at The Education Trust and coauthor of the briefs. “To reach President Obama’s goal of regaining the global lead in educated adults by 2020, graduating more students—especially from fast-growing minority groups—must be a national priority.”
This work was supported by a grant from Lumina Foundation for Education. The foundation works to ensure that 60 percent of Americans are college-educated by 2025.

# # #

About College Results Online
College Results Online (http://www.collegeresults.org/) is an interactive tool designed to provide information about graduation rates for most four-year colleges and universities. It allows users to:• Examine graduation rates and see how these rates have changed over time.• Compare graduation rates of similar colleges serving similar students.• Learn about colleges’ track records in graduating diverse groups of students.Some colleges do a much better job of graduating students than others. At many colleges, signifi cant gaps exist in graduation rates between white students and students of color. But some colleges are proving that low graduation rates—especially for minority students—are not inevitable.
Access to Success,
College Results Online,
Higher Education

http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/press-release/some-public-colleges-and-universities-are-making-gains-closing-gaps-in-g

Poor, Minority Pupils Are Now a Majority in South

Education Week
Published Online: January 19, 2010
Published in Print: January 20, 2010, as Public Schools in South Said First With Both Poor, Minority Majority

The region's demographic shift foreshadows a national trend, report says.
By Debra Viadero

The South hit a demographic turning point over the past couple of years, becoming the first U.S. region in which both low-income and minority students constitute a majority of public school enrollment, an Atlanta-based advocacy group says.
In a report released this month, the Southern Education Foundation says the demographic shift was fueled by a combination of factors: an influx of Latinos and members of other ethnic groups, a return of many African-American families to the South, and higher birthrates among both blacks and Latinos than among whites.
Children from families poor enough to qualify for the federally subsidized school meals program have made up a majority of public school enrollment since 2007, according to the foundation. ("South’s Schools Pass Milestone on Poverty," Nov. 7, 2007.)
But the shift in the proportion of minority schoolchildren is more recent. Depending on how multiracial children are counted, children from traditional minority groups became the majority enrollment in either 2008 or 2009, according to Steve Suitts, the report’s main author.

Full Story: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/20/18south.h29.html

As Berkeley Enrolls More Out-of-State Students, Racial Diversity May Suffer

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 4, 2009

Ever since California voters banned affirmative action by state agencies in 1996, the University of California at Berkeley has struggled to enroll more than a small group of black and Latino students. Four years ago, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau called the university's low numbers "shocking" and said the situation was "a crisis."
But after making limited progress since then, Berkeley officials are now struggling to avoid another drop in the enrollment of underrepresented minority students, this time because of pressures from state budget cuts.
To save money, Berkeley plans to reduce the size of next fall's freshman class. The university intends to enroll about 15 percent fewer Californians, while at the same time nearly doubling its number of out-of-state and international students, who will generate millions of dollars in new revenue from higher, nonresident tuition.
The intended growth in nonresident students at Berkeley, from about 12 percent to 23 percent of the student body, comes as public universities everywhere are turning to out-of-state tuition to replace declining state support. But the enrollment changes have sparked deep concern on the campus that black, Latino, and low-income students will be turned away disproportionately.
According to rough estimates prepared by a university panel on nonresident enrollment, the number of Latino freshmen who enroll next year could decline by 18 percent, the number of black freshmen by 13 percent, and the number of first-generation freshmen by 15 percent. Those estimates, which are based on the composition of the 2009-10 freshman applicant pool, compare with a 5-percent cut in the size of the fall freshman class as a whole.

Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/As-Berkeley-Enrolls-More/49049/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

U-M reports record enrollment, but minorities decline

Detroit News
October 13, 2009

MARISA SCHULTZThe Detroit News
Ann Arbor -- University of Michigan had a record-breaking year for freshman applications and overall enrollment, which topped 41,674 students for this fall, the university announced today.
Though the number of applications and admissions offers for underrepresented minority students topped last year, the freshman enrollment of African-American, Hispanic and Native-American students actually declined by 11.4 percent, or 69 students, to 535. Now underrepresented minorities -- the population the university has been trying to cultivate with ramped up outreach efforts since voters passed Proposal 2 in 2006 than bans consideration of race in admissions -- comprise 9.1 percent of the freshman class (excluding international students) compared to 10.4 percent last year.
"We work hard every day to build the best possible freshman class each year, and this year is no exception," said Ted Spencer, U-M associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions. "Our incoming class is exceptional in all ways, although we have experienced a notable loss in some key elements of diversity.
"We are competing nationally with other top schools that are not constrained in their ability to confer recruitment scholarships and other forms of financial aid with consideration to racial, ethnic and gender diversity, among other factors. This is a tough environment, but not impossible. We have learned a lot in the past two years, and are sharpening our skills and adding to our toolkit."
Underrepresented minorities comprised 12.6 percent of the class in fall 2006, the last class fully admitted before the passage of Proposal 2. The proportion of Hispanic, African-American and Native-American students has dropped each year since. This year's admissions cycle marks the second full year without consideration of race, gender or ethnicity since voters passed the ballot initiative.

Full Story: http://www.detnews.com/article/20091013/SCHOOLS/910130385/1026/U-M-reports-record-enrollment--but-minorities-decline

The Case Against the Case Against Affirmative Action

The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 09, 2009, 01:00 PM ET

By Kevin Carey

Crossing the Finish Line, the new book from former Princeton president William Bowen, former Macalaster College president Michael McPherson, and Matthew Chingos, is getting a lot of coverage today. (The Chronicle here, the Times here). I haven't read it yet (no review copy, ahem), but it looks very interesting. The authors tracked 94,000 students who entered 21 flagship public universities in the fall of 1999. They found major differences in graduation rates among different student groups, with minority students less likely to finish on time. This is consistent with other research.
Bowen and McPherson have also come out swinging against the so-called "mismatch" theory of why affirmative action is supposed to be bad for minority students. The mismatch theory states that student are ill-served by attending a college that is more academically challenging than they would otherwise have attended, particularly if the students weren't academically stellar to begin with. Crossing the Finish Line found the opposite to be true: black men who had less than a 3.0 grade point average in high school were more likely to graduate from the most selective flagship universities than from less selective institutions.
They also cite programs at institutions like the University of Maryland--Baltimore County where a combination of high academic expectations and high levels of academic support produce positive graduation outcomes for black students. Unfortunately, such programs are few and far between. Why? They cost money, of course, but lots of things that colleges do cost money. This is a matter of priorities. Why isn't helping minority students earn degrees more important than, say, fielding a really good basketball team?

Full Comment: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Case-Against-the-Case/7977/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The Impact of Dropping the SAT

Inside Higher Ed
March 26, 2009

A new research study -- based on simulations using actual student applications at competitive colleges that require the SAT or ACT for admission -- has found that ending the requirement would lead to demonstrable gains in the percentages of black and Latino students, and working class or economically disadvantaged students, who are admitted.
The finding is consistent with what admissions officers have reported at many colleges that have gone SAT-optional. But the basis of this new research goes well beyond the anecdotal information reported by colleges pleased with their shifts. Scholars at Princeton University's Office of Population Research obtained actual admissions data from seven selective colleges that require the SAT or ACT. Using the actual admissions patterns for these colleges, the scholars then ran statistical models showing the impact of either going SAT-optional or adopting what they called the "don't ask, don't tell" approach in which a college says that it won't look at standardized test scores.
These models suggest that any move away from the SAT or ACT in competitive colleges results in significant gains in ethnic and economic diversity. But the gains are greater for colleges that drop testing entirely, as opposed to just making it optional. (To date, only one institution -- Sarah Lawrence College -- has taken that step.)
In terms of other measures of academic competitiveness, the study found that going SAT optional would result in classes of students with higher grade point averages. Dropping testing entirely, on the other hand, would result in higher levels of academic achievement in the entering classes at the public institutions studied, but not the privates. The research will be formally presented next month at a conference at Wake Forest University about college admissions, but the Princeton researchers released the findings Wednesday.
Parts of the findings may be controversial with both SAT critics and fans. The study found that, as the College Board has long argued, the SAT is a good way to predict the first-year academic success of students. But the study's findings on the impact of dropping the SAT as a requirement provide an independent analysis to show that dropping the SAT as a requirement does lead to increased diversity -- and that is something many colleges want to promote.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/26/sat

Saginaw Valley State University overcomes Proposal 2, attracts more minority freshmen

by Andy Hoag The Saginaw News
Saturday September 13, 2008, 4:42 AM

Michigan's ban on affirmative action has hurt minority recruiting at some colleges, but Saginaw Valley State University isn't among them.

By using focused recruiting and special scholarships as tools, SVSU has increased its share of under-represented minorities -- blacks, Hispanics and American Indians -- by 4.25 percent this fall, to 245 freshmen from 235.This is the first full freshman class since voters passed Proposal 2 in November 2006, banning preferential treatment based on race. Some minorities already had received scholarships for fall 2007 before the proposal's passage.
It has hampered colleges such as Grand Valley State University in Allendale, where the number of under-represented minorities is down 30 percent this fall.
At Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan, which defended its affirmative action policy all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, enrollment of minority students dropped to 10.47 percent this year from 10.85 percent last year.
While accepting students based on ethnicity is illegal in Michigan, encouraging diversity and actively searching for it is not, U-M officials say.
That's what SVSU -- it has never had separate admissions criteria based on race -- has done, officials said.
"We make sure our admissions representatives are visiting high schools that have a large percentage of minority students," SVSU spokesman J.J. Boehm said.
SVSU also has relied on other scholarships -- private ones, which Proposal 2 does not affect -- to keep up minority freshmen enrollment. [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.mlive.com/saginawnews/news/index.ssf/2008/09/saginaw_valley_state_universit_9.html ]

Borrowers Accuse Sallie Mae of Racial Discrimination

Two borrowers of student loans have filed a lawsuit against Sallie Mae, accusing the lender of charging higher interest rates and fees to minority students.
Chronicle News Blog
January 18, 2008

In the lawsuit, Sasha Rodriguez, a Hispanic woman in Connecticut, and Cathelyn Gregoire, an African-American woman in Florida, assert that Sallie Mae discriminates against minority borrowers by taking colleges’ default rates into account when setting interest rates. Institutions that serve large numbers of minority students often have higher default rates than other colleges do.
The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, also accuses Sallie Mae of violating the Truth in Lending Act by failing to conspicuously disclose its underwriting criteria and waiting to disclose the terms and conditions of its loans until after students receive their funds or start classes.
Sallie Mae acknowledged in a Congressional hearing last summer that it considers an institution’s overall default rate when setting interest rates. That admission prompted New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and Rep. George Miller of California, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives education committee, to ask other lenders for their underwriting criteria.
Sallie Mae has until February 15 to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. The lender disclosed the litigation last month in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying it intended to “vigorously defend this action.” —Kelly Field http://chronicle.com/news/article/3773/borrowers-accuse-sallie-mae-of-racial-discrimination?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Growth and Consolidation of Minority Enrollments

Inside Higher Education
Nov. 28
Growth and Consolidation of Minority Enrollments

At a time that more college students and a larger share of college students than ever before are members of minority groups, higher percentages of them are enrolling at “minority serving” institutions — those with legally defined missions or enrollment patterns related to the demographics of their student bodies.
Between 1984 and 2004, minority undergraduate enrollment increased from 1.9 million to 4.7 million, or 146 percent. But while in 1984, minority-serving institutions enrolled 38 percent of minority students, by 2004, they enrolled a healthy majority (58 percent) of minority students. The data were in a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics.
The report notes characteristics of different subgroups of minority institutions, whose numbers are sharply up. At the same time, the report notes challenges facing these institutions, many of which serve students who are more likely than others to have low incomes, low graduation rates, and gender gaps in enrollment patterns.
And in a finding that points to changing enrollment patterns, the study finds that while the proportion of minority students who are enrolled at historically black colleges has gone down slightly in the last 20 years, the percentage of minority students who are enrolled at non-historically black, but black-serving, institutions is up, as are the percentages of colleges identified as serving Hispanic and Asian students.
Different reports and policies have classified colleges in different ways. The new report starts with two definitions provided by Congress. Historically black colleges are those created in the era of segregation to provide for the education of black students. Tribal colleges are run by tribes, many times on reservations. In both of those cases, there is no enrollment test for categorization and while some of those institutions are substantially made up of black or American Indian students, others enroll many students from different groups. To those two, these additional categories are added:
Black-serving non-historically black colleges and universities: those in which black students constitute at least 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment, while students of all other individual minority groups each constitute less than 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment.
Hispanic-serving: those institutions where Hispanic students constitute at least 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment, while students of all other individual minority groups each constitute less than 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment.
Asian-serving: those institutions where Asian students constitute at least 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment, while students of all other individual minority groups each constitute less than 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment.
American Indian-serving non-tribal colleges: those in which American Indian students constitute at least 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment, while students of all other individual minority groups each constitute less than 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment.
Other minority-serving: institutions that don’t meet other categories but where minority students as a whole make up at least 50 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment. (NOTE: These categories have some similarities, but are not identical to those used in new federal programs recently created for some of these institutions.)
During the 20 years studied, the number of minority-serving institutions increased dramatically even though one group (historically black colleges) couldn’t increase in number because its legal definition is based on a particular point in time.
Change in Numbers of Minority-Serving Colleges and Other Colleges
Category
1984
2004
Historically black
96
94
Black-serving, non historically black
200
622
Hispanic-serving
58
366
Asian-serving
21
76
American-Indian serving (includes tribal)
26
46
Other minority-serving
13
50
All minority-serving
414
1,254
Non-minority serving
2,646
2,681
All colleges
3,060
3,935
In terms of where minority students are enrolled, the period studied showed increases for all types of minority-serving institutions, but wide variation in how the sectors changed in the percentage of all minority students they enrolled.

[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/minority ]