- 64% said that increasing the number of underrepresented minority
graduate students was a priority for them (14% high and 50% medium);
82% said it was a high or medium priority for Rice administrators.
- 56% expressed concerns about the lack of academic preparation of
underrepresented minority students;
- 33% said they can’t find qualified minority applicants, and
67% said that difficulty with recruitment of underrepresented minority
graduate students posed a serious challenge to promoting diversity in
graduate education at Rice;
- 34% felt that underrepresented minority students require a lot of
time and effort (and they may not succeed), and 45% thought that difficulty
with retention of underrepresented minority graduate students posed
a serious challenge to diversity in graduate education at Rice;
- 53% said that maintaining high departmental national rankings are
either “of considerable concern” or “of concern”
in admitting more underrepresented minority graduate students;
- Only 4% said that the National Science Foundation’s
Criterion 2§
had had a strong impact on their decision to support an underrepresented
minority graduate student on a research grant, and 62% said it had little
or no impact on their decision.
More details on these and other findings from the faculty survey are
given in the sections that follow.
§Criterion 2 is the
second review criterion for all NSF-reviewed grant proposals. Specifically
as it relates to diversity: “How well does the proposed activity broaden
the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity,
disability, geographic, etc.)?” |
