Strategies for Multicultural Student Success: What about Grad School?.

A workshop was presented to undergraduates as a collection of ethnic minority voices, which provided students an opportunity to participate in an ethnic minority focused event that encouraged mentoring relationships and created opportunities for the sharing of advice between ethnic minority undergraduate and graduate students. The workshop's goals and agenda and implications for counselors are described. The feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. The authors believe that colleges and universities, and the ethnic minority students who attend them, would benefit greatly from the formal and structured implementation of a workshop series dedicated to encouraging graduate school as a postbaccalaureate option. Whereas the number of minority students receiving baccalaureate degrees has been on the rise in recent years (National Science Board, 2002), the number of minority students entering graduate school has remained disproportionately small. According to Burgess (1997), barriers to minority enrollment in graduate school in the sciences include fewer opportunities for minority undergraduates and a lack of a commitment to diversity on the part of admissions committees. Furthermore, a lack of faculty mentors from minority groups is also apparent (National Science Board, 2002). This observation is troubling because recent research indicates that in some instances, ethnic matching of mentors may be beneficial to minority undergraduates (e.g., Frierson, Hargrove, & Lewis, 1994). Undergraduates who are interested in graduate school are sometimes discouraged from applying to graduate school for various reasons. Underrepresented undergraduates sometimes lack the exposure to and accurate knowledge about graduate school. As a consequence, few are aware of the opportunities that exist for graduate school. The underlying mechanisms behind the aforementioned disparities are difficult to identity. However, the phenomenon may be partially explained by a lack of integration. Past research helps to identify theoretical orientations that are particularly relevant. Some scholars have posited that integration of an individual's academic and social communities can keep a student from leaving college (e.g., Tinto, 1993) and that active participation in communities of higher education leads to enhanced interest in and success with graduate education (e.g., Girves & Wemmerus, 1988; Herzig, 2002; Lovitts, 2001). In fact, Herzig (2004) has developed a theoretical framework called the persistence framework that not only reiterates the importance of integration but also explores the process by which students become integrated. According to Herzig (2002), as students participate in their academic communities of practice, they become integrated into those communities, which increases the likelihood that they will persist in their academic endeavors through increased exposure to norms, expectations, and support. In contrast, distractions or participation in competing communities detract from the likelihood that integration into the academic community will occur. Consequently, the extent to which competing communities can be integrated or can share members with academic communities will help increase the likelihood of academic persistence. The workshop described in this article was an attempt to help ethnic minority students integrate their academic and ethnic communities of practice. Ethnic minorities often find that they feel isolated from their academic communities of practice (Cooper, 2000; Manzo, 1994; McJamerson, 1990). In fact, many students of color often report on the importance to their own academic success of having a "critical mass" within their academic setting of other students of color. In addition, ethnic minority students, in particular, often deal with competing communities such as their socioeconomic, ethnic, or cultural communities (Herzig, 2004). Some ethnic minority students find that their commitment to ethnic, cultural, or family communities leave little time for a commitment to academic communities. …