Purdue Grad. Program Successfully Recruits from HBCU's

Black Issues in Higher Education, Dec 9, 1999

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue University is working to recruit students from historically Black colleges -- an effort the university says helped triple the number of Blacks enrolled in its graduate school.

An annual program, started in 1987, brings students from historically Black colleges and universities to the Purdue campus. That year, Purdue's graduate school had only 74 Black students. This fall, 207 of Purdue's 6,100 graduate students are Black, and 71 of them participated in the visitation program.

Participants in the program have earned 16 doctorates and 116 master's degrees from Purdue. Eighteen are working on doctorates.

Jesse James IV, a young African American majoring in biology at Florida A&M University who attended this year's visitation program, has attended Black schools since the second grade.

"Education is the jewel," he says. "For so long, Black people couldn't have it.... I have a responsibility to those who bled and died so that I can have it."

James says historically Black schools are dedicated to nurturing Black minds. But now that he's moving on to the graduate level, he needs to consider research capabilities, laboratories and grant funding -- the kind of things a larger university like Purdue can offer.

Some graduates of the program now teach at the historically Black colleges they once attended, and they're telling their students about Purdue.

"We have a heritage of recruiting minority students, underrepresented populations," says Gary Isom, dean of the graduate school.

Following Purdue's lead, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Wisconsin and other schools have started similar programs.

Purdue focuses on 11 historically Black colleges and universities. Their graduates bring a different perspective to campus, says Dwight Lewis, director of the graduate school's minority programs.

"They also debunk a lot of stereotypes about the quality of education that students get at historically Black institutions," he says. "The success they have had here shows they are getting a quality education."