April 10, 2006
From: GSC-Diversity Committee
Subject: Impact Graduate Diversity, Nominate Your Colleagues for Vice Provost
YOU can make a difference! After several reports on graduate diversity (UCMI 1989 - G-DAC 2005), Stanford, in the form of the Commission on Graduate Education (CGE) Report, has embraced a dramatic university change: the creation of the Vice Provost of Graduate Education. The Graduate Student Council’s Diversity Committee first proposed this office to the CGE and Stanford administration to improve graduate studies for all students and improve graduate diversity for the university. Stanford has embraced this recommendation and is searching for the new Vice Provost. Please take the time to nominate your colleagues; individuals who you think have the skills, drive, persistence, and resilience to tackle the challenge of improving graduate education and graduate diversity at Stanford. You also have the opportunity to nominate your colleagues for the Vice Provost and Dean of Research. For more information about these positions or to send nominations, contact Stephanie Kalfayan, the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Deputy Chair of the selection committee, at kalfayan@stanford.edu.
You Can Help Eliminate Stanford’s Graduate Diversity Dichotomy.
In our discussions with the university administration about graduate diversity, they have said that Stanford is “on par” with its peer institutions. When in Stanford’s history has it been acceptable to be on par for anything? Stanford has the opportunity to excel and provide national leadership in improving underrepresented minority and female graduate student diversity and education.
This is a critical moment where you can dramatically improve graduate education at Stanford. Stanford requires a unified long term plan and commitment to improve graduate diversity and education. Please take the time to nominate your colleagues for these Vice Provost positions, but don’t stop there! We have spoken with your school’s dean, Provost Etchemendy, and President Hennessy about graduate diversity, recruitment, retention, and graduation, and now we need your help. The office of the Vice Provost of Graduate Education is part of the solution that requires your collaboration!
The GSC Diversity Committee (GSC-DC) was created in 2004 to help solve the graduate diversity issues at Stanford. The GSC-DC brings together student efforts that started over a decade ago in isolated and disparate departments and schools. This unified graduate student effort exists because Stanford has not proactively addressed the diversity crisis that exists in its graduate and professional schools. While the university has been a leader in creating a diverse undergraduate student body, the diversity of the graduate population, and in particular the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students in the graduate schools at Stanford continues to decline. Furthermore while some schools (medicine, law, and education) have had success in creating gender diversity, women constitute only 35.8% of the total graduate enrollment. The numbers of URM students are even worse. While the total graduate population has increased 8% over the past ten years (1995-2005), the number of URM students across all graduate and professional schools at Stanford has steadily decreased by 1.5% per year over the last decade. Figure 1 illustrates the dramatic dichotomy of undergraduate and graduate diversity at Stanford in 2006. Although the graduate student population is 20% larger than the undergraduate population, the undergraduate URM population, in both percentages and actual student population, is more than double that of the graduate URM student population.
Figure 1: Undergraduate and Graduate population percentages for underrepresented minorities. Source: http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/
Stanford’s entire community must work together to improve graduate education and graduate diversity. The creation of the Vice Provost of Graduate Education provides the framework for collaboration. However, this office cannot solve these problems on its own. In order to stop the erosion of graduate diversity, we the students, faculty, staff, and alumni, must work together and the first of many steps is finding the most qualified Vice Provost to lead the charge.
For additional information on our efforts, visit our website:
http://gsc.stanford.edu/Advocacy/Diversity/
Thank You,
The GSC Diversity Committee
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