The University of Colorado at Boulder has become the 29th member of the Leadership Alliance, the premiere coalition of the nation's top research and teaching institutions seeking to increase the numbers of traditionally underrepresented students in graduate study.
James H. Wyche, executive director of the Alliance and associate provost at Brown University, will visit the Boulder campus Monday and Tuesday July 16th and 17th. He will meet with CU-Boulder faculty Monday afternoon.
"CU-Boulder has a long-term commitment to diversity," said Chancellor Richard L. Byyny. "Throughout the 1990s we ranked 16th in the nation for producing minority doctoral students and since then our efforts to recruit graduate students have intensified even more," he said.
Byyny noted that the Graduate School has a strong record of managing diversity programs and has established an infrastructure that supports diversity efforts across all academic departments. The National Science Foundation recently awarded the Graduate School a $2.5 million grant in recognition and support of the school's long-term commitment to diversity and its track record for producing minority doctoral students.
According to Wyche, "The Leadership Alliance seeks to provide a framework where committed institutions of higher education come together to exchange ideas, plans and models to address the continuing shortage of graduate students, Ph.D. candidates and tenure-track faculty of color in academia.
"We believe that the University of Colorado at Boulder not only shares the commitment of our institutional members, but also, as a working member of the Alliance, will assist us in working toward the goal of fair representation in the academy for all students," Wyche said. "It is with great pleasure that I welcome CU-Boulder to the ranks of our active group of colleges and universities."
The purpose of Wyche's visit will be to provide additional material and background information that may be useful in helping the Boulder campus become an active and participating member of the Alliance.
Some of the programs offered by the Alliance include a Summer Research Early Identification program, which is a centralized effort to place minority students in summer research programs at member institutions, a Minority International Research Training program and a program that promotes faculty exchanges with other Alliance faculty.
Some of the other Alliance member institutions include Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Howard University, Montana State University-Bozeman, Stanford University, University of Maryland and Yale University.
CU-Boulder was elected to the board at the spring business meeting at the end of April 2001.
CU-Boulder's graduate school offers 42 doctoral and 53 master's degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. Â鶹ÒùÔº interested in pursuing graduate studies at CU-Boulder should contact the department to which they are applying for specific details.
For more information on the Graduate School, call (303) 492-7401 or visit the Web site at .