Prof to study low minority graduation rates

Sociology Department Chairperson Douglas Massey's work will focus on black college students. Why do so many minority students consistently get lower grades and have lower graduation rates than white students? That question is at the heart of a new 5-year study being led by Sociology Department Chairperson Douglas Massey. The study, which will follow a sample of students over five years, is the first of its kind dealing with minority college students in United States, according to Massey. Massey is getting full financial support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York, which had $2.8 billion in assets as of December 1996. The Mellon Foundation, which has a particular interest in minorities in higher education, sought out Massey -- a noted sociologist whose research interest is in minorities -- and suggested he undertake a research project. "This will be very useful to the higher education community," said Jacqueline Looney, a program officer with the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program. The issue is of particular importance at Penn. The Office of the Provost recently reported that "graduation rates for African-Americans and Latino-American students are lower than for other groups of students" within the 12.4 percent of the undergraduate student body that does not graduate every year. Last June, the foundation awarded a $200,000 grant for the initial stages of Massey's study. Once this planning phase is completed, Massey will request additional funds from the foundation to complete the study. The survey will focus primarily on the black population. With more funding, Massey hopes to expand the research to include Latinos and Asian Americans. The purpose of the research is to understand why minority students -- specifically black students -- seem to be less successful than students of white European descent, he said. The survey will attempt to tackle questions such as why some universities have lower retention rates for black students than others and why many minority students consistently receive lower grades in college even when they have the same SAT scores and family income as white students. "When we have answered these questions, we will be in a better position to design programs catering to the needs of minority students and be able to retain talented minority students," Massey said. Massey's research team will initially conduct extensive interviews with about 4,000 students -- 2,000 black and 2,000 white. The students will come from elite private and public universities as well as historically black schools affiliated with the Mellon Foundation. Penn will participate in the survey. The "retrospective background" interview will target particular points in the interviewee's lives and ask questions on his or her experiences and surroundings, such as school life, family environment and community interaction. These interviews will determine what kind of socio-economic experiences bring minority students to college and to what degree they differ from white students. Over five years, researchers will then follow the students through college and for one additional year. After the first wave of surveys this fall, the results should be available for the University to use in setting its policies, especially those pertaining to University President Judith Rodin's financial initiatives designed to enhance recruitment and retention of under-represented minority students, faculty students and staff. Through the study, Massey said he hopes to "come to a theoretical and empirical understanding of how minority students pass through the University." "This knowledge will then help design better policies that fit the needs of minority students."

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