Minority students in Tennessee who have an aptitude for mathematics and science are likely to learn about the engineering program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville long before they start thinking about college.
Tennessee’s College of Engineering offers an abundance of programs for minority students starting as early as the seventh grade, in part because it hopes the exposure will prompt them to apply to the college one day.
The college’s Office of Diversity Programs, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of such programs at the college, has seen the graduation of more than 900 minority students, including 15 master’s and Ph.D. students. And the office seems to be improving with age: Enrollment of underrepresented minority students is up 73 percent over the past decade, and the number who have graduated is up 43 percent over the same period.
“If I were to point to one reason for why we’ve been successful, I would say it is because of our pipeline programs,” says Masood Parang, the college’s associate dean of academic and student affairs.
The University of Tennessee consistently ranks among the top 50 institutions in the country at graduating African-American engineering students, but it still has work to do. African-Americans make up only 3.3 percent of the 701 students in the engineering college’s current freshman class, and Hispanic students account for less than 1 percent. (An additional 6.4 percent of freshmen describe themselves as “multiracial.”)
The college’s High School Introduction to Engineering Systems, a weeklong program for rising juniors and seniors, received the top award for a pre-college program this year from the National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates. Program participants live in a college dormitory, attend engineering lectures, go on field trips to companies like Procter & Gamble, and work on team projects that they present to their parents at the end of the week.
Brandon Hambrick found out about Hites, as the program is known, when he was a junior in high school, after meeting Travis Griffin, director of the Office of Diversity Programs, during a visit to the university’s campus. Mr. Hambrick, an African-American student, attended the program the following summer, and says it won him over. He is now a sophomore majoring in materials science and engineering at Tennessee, taking courses on differential equations and advanced calculus.
He plans to use his engineering skills to help develop alternative sources of energy and reduce the country’s dependence on oil. “Numbers and chemistry—those were my things growing up,” he says. “This is definitely the right place for me.”
Mr. Hambrick grew up in Chattanooga, just an hour and a half away from Knoxville, which is in the far eastern corner of the state. But a majority of the state’s minority students are in bigger cities, like Nashville and Memphis.
The college’s diversity office uses donations from corporate sponsors to charter buses and bring students from those cities to special events, including Engineers Day, a competition that attracts 1,200 students from 55 high schools. Students compete in a range of academic contests, like building radiation shields and balsa-wood bridges.
“The main idea is for students to come to the university, receive a warm welcome from the dean of engineering, compete in the challenges, and tour our engineering labs,” Mr. Griffin says.
A weeklong summer program for rising seventh and eighth graders, meanwhile, features hands-on projects and a tour of the American Museum of Science and Energy, in nearby Oak Ridge.
The university’s governing board this year recognized the accomplishments of the engineering diversity office by naming its first new residence hall in 43 years for Fred D. Brown Jr., the program’s first director.
The engineering college also wants to recruit more faculty members from underrepresented groups, a step that would add role models for minority undergraduates. Of the college’s 172 faculty members, five are African-American (up from three in 2008) and four are Hispanic (up from just one in 2008).
The college also has many minority alumni who are in leadership positions at corporations or in academe. Many of them work in Nashville or Memphis and help the college identify prospects for its middle- and high-school programs.
“When students have a great experience,” Mr. Griffin says, “they become recruiters for the program.”
