Illinois Partners for Diversity
A Summit for Advancing Inclusion and Access in Graduate Education
On November 4, 2011, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host a second annual summit to enhance diversity in graduate education. We build on the Procter & Gamble Science Diversity Summit of 2010 to bring together administrative leaders and distinguished faculty from six institutions of higher education in Illinois with a view to enabling the flow of students among our campuses. The group aims to enhance opportunities particularly for students of underrepresented backgrounds to enter graduate education in Illinois.
Attending the summit will be representatives of:
Guests from additional Illinois partners at historically minority serving institutions will participate in the event to offer their experience and facilitate discussion. Attending in this capacity will be:
Naomi Jakobsson, Illinois State Representative, 103rd District, will attend to speak with participants about the Higher Education agenda in Illinois and funding for diversity initiatives.
Barbara Olds, Acting Deputy Assistant Director of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF), will open the event with discussions of the national agenda for broadening access to higher education and national funding opportunities.
Laura Haas, Assistant Vice President of Diversity/Human Resources at State Farm Insurance will join the group for lunch time discussions of graduate education and a diverse workforce.
Summit Goals
Summit goals are to establish an inter-institional network among all institutions and initiate collaborations/partnerships among particular institutions to:
- bridge cohorts of underrepresented racial minority students into science, technology, engineering, and math graduate programs;
- develop innovative collaborations in varying forms (e.g., consortiums or individual partnerships with programs/units; faculty-student exchanges across campuses; joint grant writing; curriculum matching);
- create enduring partnerships to increase the number of undergraduates who enter established bridge programs and graduate programs,
- achieve high degree-completion rates for students entering science based graduate degree programs in the state of Illinois;
- further develop corporate sponsorship of annual or biennial summit meetings to bring leaders from STEM disciplines together to review successes, strengthen ongoing activities, and advance pipeline collaborations.