Senate hears annual report on diversity in graduate education

Patricia Gumport, vice provost for graduate education, discussed diversity in graduate enrollment, and Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising, discussed the roles of pre-major advisers and academic directors.

In her annual report to the Faculty Senate yesterday, Patricia Gumport, vice provost for graduate education, said she was "encouraged overall" by an increase in the number of underrepresented minorities (URM) enrolled in Stanford’s graduate programs.

At the Thursday meeting, the senate also heard a report on undergraduate advising by Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising. A report on her presentation will appear in an upcoming issue of Stanford Report.

In addition, President John Hennessy announced that Stanford will probably end up exploring alternative possibilities to establishing an ROTC program on campus, given the budgetary difficulties of the Department of Defense, and the likelihood that Stanford would not have enough ROTC students to open a separate, independent program.

Diversity in graduate enrollment

Gumport, who presented more than two dozen slides during her report, said Stanford currently has 8,796 graduate students enrolled in its seven schools.

Among that population, 3,163 are white; 2,893 are international students; 1,182 are Asian American; 736 are of unknown ethnicity (some declined to state); 475 are Hispanic; 279 are African American; and 68 are Native American, she said.

Gumport, who launched the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education in 2007, said she was encouraged to report that this year, Stanford has 822 underrepresented minority graduate students, up from 810 last year.

"We still have a long way to go," she said after the meeting. "The numbers are moving in the right direction – inching up."

Gumport told the senate she was concerned about the proportion of enrollment of URM students.

"In 1995, URM enrollment was 10.7 percent of total graduate enrollment," she said. "We have not regained that percentage. This year, we have a slight increase from last year; we’re up to 9.3 percent of the total. It makes us concerned. We’re still trying."

One reason the percentage of URM graduate students has remained low is because of the "tremendous increase" in international graduate student enrollment, which grew 46 percent between 1995 and 2011, she said.

International students now make up 33 percent of Stanford’s total graduate student population, she said.

"I did a lot of thinking and digging through all of our data files and looked at what else could possibly be going on, especially with the international enrollment and the URM enrollment," she said. "I looked at admit rates, yields and applications."

Gumport said the "big story" was the difference in applications.

"From 1995 to 2011, we had a 38 percent increase in graduate applications university-wide," she said. "But for international students, we had a 136 percent increase. And for our underrepresented minority students only a 10 percent increase.

"This, I think, is very telling, and it underscores our need to continue to invest in recruitment and do more. We have very dedicated people out in the schools. We have staff people who go on the road. Occasionally, we have faculty as well. I know a lot of our faculty are in over email with students. This is just a big opportunity for us to do better."

In 2011, Stanford enrolled 8,796 graduate students – a record number, and a slight increase over last year’s total of 8,779, according to one of Gumport’s slides.

"I think we have tremendous vitality in graduate education at Stanford, and it’s only getting better," Gumport said at the beginning of her presentation.

"We have a lot to be proud of. We attract the best students. They’re having a fabulous educational experience here. They’re relatively well funded, especially compared to our public peer institutions. And there is an enormous array of resources for innovation and cross-disciplinary work in their graduate experience. It’s a very rosy picture. I also want to say for the last eight years I’ve been on the budget group, and I’ve seen that graduate education is protected as an institutional priority, and we should feel very good about that."

Gumport also announced that the DARE (Diversifying Academic, Recruiting Excellence) Doctoral Fellowship Program has been extended to include four more cohorts of students. The two-year fellowships are designed for advanced doctoral students who aspire to academic careers.

Hennessy announcement on ROTC

Last April, the senate approved a proposal to establish a "restructured" Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at Stanford after a 40-year hiatus.

At yesterday’s senate meeting, President John Hennessy announced that given the budgetary difficulties of the Department of Defense, and the likelihood that Stanford would not have enough ROTC students to open a separate, independent program, the university will probably end up exploring alternative possibilities.

He said Stanford is considering providing the opportunity for its ROTC students to take classes on campus rather than having to commute to other campuses with ROTC programs; and the possibility that a consortium of South Bay universities may opt to open an ROTC program with the U.S. Navy. Currently, Stanford’s Navy ROTC students commute to the University of California-Berkeley for classes, he said.

"The third possibility may be some review, which we would ask C-USP [Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy] to do, about the possibility of getting credit for some ROTC courses taken elsewhere, which would ease the life of our students who currently take those courses as an extra burden on top of their Stanford requirements," Hennessy said. "Those are all avenues we’re exploring. We’ll continue to explore those and keep the senate up to date."

Minutes available next week

The full minutes of the Nov. 10 meeting, including the questions and answers that followed each presentation, will be available on the Faculty Senate website next week.