Working Groups Reports: Student Recruitment and Retention

Please Note: These reports were produced by working group teams participating in the MizzouDiversity Summit. There may be errors in some of the data provided and the viewpoints presented reflect the beliefs and opinions of the working group teams but do not necessarily represent the official positions of the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative or the University of Missouri.

Praiseworthy Aspects

Presence of minority based scholarships and the office (ARS) to support the students
Increased number of underrepresented minority students on campus and the development of an undergraduate minority recruitment position
Facilities and groups that provide a welcoming and nurturing community
Existence of offices that service diverse students such as multicultural center, International Students Career Services, etc.
Students who persist to graduation have strong positive opinions about MU
Creation of a diversity video that will be shown to new students to establish campus values around diversity
Existence of several early outreach programs

Specific Recruitment and Retention Concerns or Problems

Lack of coordinated efforts for recruiting or retaining diverse graduate students
Loss of support for continuing effective programs
No person or office that has responsibility for coordinating and leading retention services on campus
Climate of stereotype threat on campus impacts willingness of minority students to access services
Diversity efforts needs to include white students as well
Commitment to diversity is lacking given scheduling of meeting on Sunday and before finals week.
Financial support for programming as compared to lip service
Lack of universally accepted definition of diversity
Ineffective recruitment of diverse students by departments
Lack of funding for retention efforts and threat of losing existing funding
Compete Mizzou plan appears to be at expense of students’ financial support
Increase funding for retention services including mentoring which are more economical than recruitment activities
Recruitment should start earlier as a long-term solutions such as at the elementary school level
Improve mechanism to assess effectiveness of services
Improve effort to understand why students are dropping out
Establish a person or office that has responsibility for coordinating and leading retention services on campus