Doctoral Program Produces 300th Minority Graduate

ATLANTA

A program created in 1993 to stem the shortage of minority faculty at university campuses, especially in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, has recently produced its 300^th Ph.D.

“It is a milestone. We celebrate the fact that the program has produced 300 minority graduates in 13 years. For a single program, that is pretty significant,” says Dr. Ansley A. Abraham, director of The Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB)-State Doctoral Scholars Program.

The 300^th graduate, Dr. Kimberly Bailey, received her doctorate in biomedical engineering. Bailey, 30, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says she found out about the program at UAB and received nearly $20,000 for the five-year doctoral package. But she didn’t just receive financial support.

“The SREB has a teaching and mentoring institute where scholars can go … a workshop helps you meet other scholars,” says Bailey. “They have a tight system of support.”

Although one-third of the nation’s college students are minorities, only about 10 percent of faculty members in higher education institutions in the 16 SREB states are people of color, says Abraham.

He adds that almost 80 percent of the program’s graduates are employed in some capacity in education-related fields in 38 states, and nearly 75 percent of the graduates are in higher education as faculty, administrators or postdoctoral researchers.

“Even more remarkable, the program’s retention graduate rate is nearly 90 percent — more than double the national rate for minority doctoral students,” Abraham says.

The 16 SREB states continue to support the program because “states have seen the need, know the benefit and are responding to the need,” he says.

— Diverse staff reports

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