Penn prof studies minority recruitment and retention

Douglas Massey is surveying college students to determine what pressures minorities face. Trying to both recruit and retain minority students remains an ongoing concern for Penn and its peer institutions. But in a new study currently underway, a Penn professor is trying to find the key reasons for the problem -- and to determine some of the pressures minorities face at college. Sociology Department Chairman Douglas Massey is currently conducting a study -- funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation -- surveying over 4,000 students of different racial backgrounds from nearly 40 selective colleges and universities. The students are questioned about their family life, neighborhoods and school environments. Massey said the study marks the first in-depth look at minorities in academia. "We're 25 years into a national program to integrate minorities into the academic system," he noted, "yet no one has done a systematic study [on the success of minorities in the system]." Massey explained that the students participating in the study are all college freshmen -- African-American, white, Latino and Asian -- and they will be tracked throughout the next four years, whether or not they remain in college. Penn is contributing 50 students, from all four races, to the study. These students served as part of the pilot program for the study, which was launched in 1998. United Minorities Council Chairman Jerome Byam said the study is an important step for minorities both in academia and at Penn. "Penn has the lowest retention rate of African-American males and Latinos out of all the urban Ivies, and we also do poorly in recruitment and retention of Native Americans," Byam said. As of last year, the undergraduate student body was approximately 5 percent African American and 3 percent Latino. Director of the African American Resource Center, Jeanne Arnold, also applauded the study saying that, "I'd definitely want that? I want to know any barriers to achievement. I think that's critical information." Massey said one of the reasons for low retention rates may be "stereotype vulnerability." The phrase, coined by Harvard sociologist Claude Steele, refers to a sense of intellectual inferiority that may be felt by many minority students. According to Camille Charles, a sociology professor and co-investigator of the study, minority groups must often cope with additional pressure because they feel that their academic performance reflects not only themselves as individuals but also their entire ethnic group. "Student performance has become political," said Herman Beavers, a faculty member in the English department and director of the African-American Studies Program. "[Minority students] feel their failures resonate at the level of the group." Massey acknowledged that African Americans are faced with many cross-cutting pressures that other students may not have to deal with. He said they may come from a more segregated background, a lower socio-economic status, poor neighborhoods and inferior public schools and also face additional family and financial pressures. Another problem minorities face, Massey said, is that of finding an identity on campus. Often, these students are entering an environment in which they are a minority for the first time. "This seems to be a pretty isolating place," Charles said. But others feel there is no noticeable difference in academic performance between minorities and non-minorities. "I don't think in my own experience I've experienced any major differences in how my minority students perform," said Farah Griffin, who is the undergraduate chairwoman of the English department. Charles, however, said that problems with retention are not so much an academic issue as a social and financial one. She said for some minority students, it is the burden of college tuition that simply becomes too much, adding that even when black and white families have comparable income, they may not have comparable wealth.