NEW YORK – Among the vast range of topics expert panelists dissected at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity, a group of Tennessee higher education officials tackled what has become the signature issue in the Obama era: college completion.
Dr. Sidney McPhee, president of Middle Tennessee State University, highlighted how his campus has tied its retention efforts to an academic master plan that has promoted academic quality, individual student success and public service. The plan has incorporated principles around targeting underrepresented minority students and those students with great financial need. Such students receive mentoring help from one or more faculty members, which is one of several MTSU population-specific support programs for underrepresented students.
McPhee said such support programs with successful results cannot be achieved without state support even while MTSU has experienced budget cuts. He noted that states are great at saying what should be done and terrible at supporting it. “We are expected to perform miracles,” he said.
“States must invest in resources,” McPhee noted.
With the highest attendance in five years, the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education tackled such familiar topics as retention and access as well as emerging issues such as how to continue to push for affirmative action despite significant challenges.
Originally launched by the University of Oklahoma in 1988, the annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) brings together college administrators, professors, directors of staff, student leaders, representatives of government and community-based organizations and others engaged in higher education to discuss issues of policy, planning and practicality. It traditionally provides a forum for discussion as well as giving attendees effective strategies that they can take back to their campuses.
“What happens here doesn’t stay here,” said Dr. Belinda P. Biscoe Boni, associate vice president of community outreach in the College of Continuing Education at the University of Oklahoma. “People present models of change and new ways to do things on campuses. Many people over the years have gone back and done things on their campuses that have been transformative.”
