Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Graduate degrees decreasing among Ohio State U. minorities
By Sarah Zaremba
The Lantern (Ohio State U.)
11/21/2006

(U-WIRE) COLUMBUS, Ohio — There has been a significant decrease in the number of graduate and professional degrees awarded to minority students at Ohio State University, according to a report in the July 13 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine.

The report ranked the top 100 schools of graduate and professional degrees among minorities. This was based on data obtained from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics' Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Set for the 2004-2005 academic year.

This issue was brought to the attention of OSU President Karen A. Holbrook by Frank W. Hale Jr., vice provost and professor emeritus, in a July 31 letter indicating concern that OSU, "once the No. 1 producer of black Ph.D.s in America, is now ranked No. 31."

"I was frustrated beyond measure to see how minority students' presence has plummeted at The Ohio State University in recent years," Hale said.

Hale said he came to OSU in 1971 and designed the Graduate and Professional Schools Visitation Days Program, which invited top minority students to visit OSU. Because of his initiative, nearly $15 million in graduate fellowship awards were awarded to minority students.

"During the '70s and '80s, we became the No. 1 producer of Ph.D.s (because of the recruitment program)," Hale said. "Even though the program continues, I was concerned we are not ranked as high."

In her response letter dated Sept. 6, Holbrook indicated that prior to the article a joint committee of the Graduate School and the Office of Minority Affairs was already reviewing the situation. The committee, chaired by Gregory Smith, was set up to make recommendations to reverse this trend.

"Our responsibility has been to look at recruitment and retention efforts on campus, to review current programs ... and to make recommendations for improvement based on a national level," said Washington, professor of mechanical engineering and associate dean of research for the College of Engineering.

In addition, Holbrook said Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the top 100 list are all "online institutions, rather than traditional institutions."

"These three institutions account for 424 black doctorates or slightly more than 20 percent of the total of 2,070 awarded last year," Holbrook said.

Hale said, however, there are many traditional schools that ranked above us.

Washington said online schools do have an impact, but he discounts this factor because OSU is still not stacking up in respect to many other Big Ten institutions.

"Take those three (online) schools out of the picture; OSU still looks really bad," Washington said.

Washington said the committee requested information from the different colleges at OSU and looked at what each is doing. Currently, the committee is in the process of documenting their findings. They hope to present these results to both the Office of Minority Affairs and the Graduate School sometime during the beginning to middle of winter quarter.

"What we are finding overall is there is very little centralized recruitment of students of any nationality or race going on across campus," Washington said.

After presenting these findings of low recruitment, Washington said he expects to see significant improvements in 2008.

"I hope (the committee's findings) leads to programs and initiatives that will foster a higher level of recruitment across campus, for all students," Washington said.

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