Tufts' seven graduate schools are stepping up efforts to promote diversity, coalescing with the creation of the Graduate and Professional Student Admissions Recruitment Committee.
The committee, which was established by Assistant Provost Elise Ayhi, emphasizes the significance of diversity and provides a forum to discuss the difficulties in attracting minorities to graduate programs.
"The idea is that by pooling our resources, we can talk about these issues in terms of Tufts as a whole," said Kristen Zecchi, associate director of admissions and financial aid at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
The committee may have a difficult job ahead, though, given that traditionally, fewer students apply to graduate programs than to undergraduate institutions.
According to Fletcher's Assistant Director of Admissions Jessica Daniels, the result has been increased competition between elite graduate schools for minority representation.
"I think some of the challenges faced by the elite undergraduate schools are magnified for the graduate schools," she said.
Still, several Tufts programs have been fairly well-off in terms of representation and are making efforts to further improve minority recruitment.
The School of Dental Medicine, for example, has seen a substantial increase in minority representation over the past ten years.
While in the mid 1990s they had only two African-American students, the current student body includes 26. Similarly, the Latino population has increased from 16 to 39 students.
"I think our numbers really [attest] to the commitment of the school in the direction of diversity," Dental School Admissions Coordinator Adam Hetland said.
He listed several diversity initiatives which account for their increase, like conferences aiming to get students of color on the health track early on in their education, improved financial aid opportunities and student support groups.
These efforts have helped keep the school in good shape nationally, he said. National growth rates are "much smaller than the growth that we've seen in our enrollment of students of color here at Tufts," he said.
The Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences may be experiencing similar growth in minority representation.
"If anything, there's been a slight increase within the past two or three years," Administrative Coordinator for the Sackler School Sara Rattigan said.
Current numbers indicate a student body that is 2.2 percent African-American and 2.6 percent Latino.
For many schools, diversification has been a balancing act because they are well represented in some minorities and underrepresented in others.
Both the Fletcher School and the School of Dental Medicine, for example, consider Asian-Americans a represented minority.
Many of the schools also boast a large international population that adds to diversity. Fletcher, for example, is 40 percent international.
"The primary challenges we talk about are reaching Hispanics and African American students," she said. "We're always looking at our diversity numbers every year."
Beyond that, many schools are looking for diversity in areas other than race. "We're building up mechanisms here that try to address the needs of a wide range of students," Zecchi said.
Each graduate school faces its own unique set of obstacles, further complicating the process.
"Dentistry tends to be one of the least progressive health professions in terms of diversity representation, and that is another reason why it is such an important focus for our admissions staff," Hetland said.
Despite these separate concerns, there is room for cooperation. The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, for example, has teamed up with Sackler in a joint promotional effort at two minority conferences for students in the biological sciences.
"Our goal for next year is to work closer together to try and have more of a presence at the conferences," Associate Director of Student Affairs for Admissions in the Friedman School Matthew Hast said.
All of the schools recognize that these efforts to increase diversity need to be ongoing.
"While we are finding access and our numbers are increasing, we certainly aren't done," Hetland said.
"The challenge is still there and we're planning to continue with our diversity outreach programs."
To this end, the Graduate and Professional Student Admissions Recruitment Committee may serve as a valuable resource.
"It's a wonderful opportunity for the schools to talk about these important issues," Hast said.
Zecchi, a member of this committee, said the group meets monthly. Current projects include designing a brochure to promote diversity, as well as an "exit survey" with current students of color "so when they leave we can get a sense of their experiences," she said.
