The Texas A&M University system has formed a coalition designed to attract more women and minority students to math, science, and engineering careers.
Coalition officials hope to designate $50 million in research grants, state funding, and corporate support for the effort, which targets students from kindergarten through college.
“If we don’t have the program linked K through 20, we’re not going to be able to address the problem the way that we need to,” said Edward A. Hiler, interim chancellor of the system.
The system, which consists of eight Texas universities, all with high populations of minorities, will build on its outreach efforts to elementary and secondary schools by developing summer programs for minority youths, using video instruction by professors to supplement the efforts of high-school teachers, and linking teachers with professors on research, Mr. Hiler said.
The State Higher Education Executive Officers organization has issued a report on how states and institutions can successfully recruit, retain, and graduate minority students.
Drawing on the efforts of eight states, the organization has identified several avenues for states and institutions to pursue.
They are to develop ties to elementary and secondary education; to research and acknowledge data on minority participation in and graduation from postsecondary institutions; to use graduation rates, not participation rates, to determine student success; to use testing and assessment as means to include, not exclude, students; and to ease the transfer of students from community colleges.
Copies of the report are available for $14 each from sheeo, 707 17th St., Suite 2700, Denver, Colo. 80202-3427; telephone (303) 299-3686.
The U.S. Education Department has announced that the department and guarantee agencies last year collected $28.5 million from student-loan defaulters under an amnesty program.
The one-time program was mandated by the Congress and gave defaulters six months to repay their loans. The department mailed information on the program to more than 600,000 defaulters, and spent $960,000 on public-service spots for radio and TV and paid advertisements in newspapers.
Temple University will grant four-year, full-tuition scholarships to undergraduate dependents of Pennsylvania residents killed, totally disabled, missing in action, or taken prisoner in the Persian Gulf war.
The school will also offer veterans of the war three free credits upon their return.
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