Supporting Minority Students in Geoscience at Hampton University

Jump down to Context | Keys to Success | Attracting New Students | Supporting Our Majors | Preparing Students for Careers

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Marine and Environmental Science Department

Context

Hampton University is a Historically Black Institution. Around 90% of the student body is African-American. The university and department are currently working to increase diversity by trying to attract more hispanic students, asian students, native american students and other minority students as well. Also, the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program is quite strong on campus so there are more students with military training entering the department as well.

Keys to Success

• Attracting new students to the program through encouraging current students to share what they love about the program with incoming students.
• Supporting majors through providing support and funding for authentic research opportunities for students
• Preparing students for careers using seminars to help prepare students for the graduate school application process

Attracting New Students

Students find the department through promotion events like 'high school days' or other open house events. They talk to current undergraduate students and see the excitement and passion of those students and find that they want to be part of that community, too. Those current students sell the degree to the incoming students. The Marine and Environmental Science department is also small- few students and few faculty, but the experiences offered inspire students to want to be part of the department.

Once enrolled, the department gets a list of new freshmen who have indicated that they are interested in Marine and Environmental Science. The department then distributes a packet of information about potential careers in the field, opportunities within the department (like research or internships), information about the degree program that is offered in the department.

During the required freshman seminar course in the degree path, time is devoted to discussing what marine science is and what the potential careers are. This also helps to recruit students to the major.

Supporting Our Majors

A hands-on and field based approach to learning science. Many of the courses are field based or lab based; some are extended student-driven research experiences. These labs provide context and relevance to support the classroom learning that is taking place concurrently. These labs also provide experience to support internships and research that happen during the summer.

Because the department is small (around 30 students), faculty can form relationships with students and learn what their interests are strengths are. Faculty use these relationships to provide more meaningful opportunities for research and internships for students as well as providing study skills, course selection, and providing information about the various campus services as needed. Faculty also advises on career paths throughout a student's 4 years at Hampton.

There are several opportunities for research and internships available for students made available through a variety of grants supported by NOAA and NSF and run in collaboration with industry and other universities across the country. Since research is required of our students, providing funding and connections with other faculty is an important way that students are supported. The department also provides funding and support for students to attend professional conferences and meeting across the country, also with the goal of supporting student's transition into graduate school.

The faculty is beginning to work on promoting team building for students within the department. For example, department-wide field trips are being offered to not only provide enriching educational experiences, but also to provide an opportunity for upper- and under-class student to engage with one another, for the under-class students to learn from the upper-class students, and to provide an opportunity for under-class students to learn what the upper-class students will be doing once they graduate.

For students who need basic skill support, there is a campus-wide student support center. The center provides tutoring by peers. Informally, students within the department have also organized providing tutoring for fellow students and offer this service for free. Students are working on building test banks to help other students succeed in courses.

Preparing Students for New Careers

Careers

Most students go on to graduate school, and many of the course and degree requirements focus on preparing students to be successful in graduate school.

Courses that prepare students for these careers

Students are required to conduct some kind of independent research as part of the graduation requirements. This experience prepares students for graduate school by providing an opportunity to design and implement their own research ideas or to perform research near the level of a graduate school experience.

Juniors enroll in a graduate school preparation seminar to help students better understand the application process and the kind of work they'll be doing once they get to graduate school. This course is offered in the spring of the Junior year. Students begin by learning how to contact potential advisors and build up to preparing application materials. Speakers are brought in to the course to reinforce what is being taught about the application process and what's required in graduate school.