University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Students at the UIUC

Lalla, Chris

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/8740

Description

Title
Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Students at the UIUC
Author(s)
Lalla, Chris
Issue Date
2008
Keyword(s)
  • Minority students
  • diversity
  • underrepresented students
  • globalization
  • race
  • multi-culturaliasm
  • RHET105M5 S08
Abstract
In this research, I seek to examine the ways in which the UIUC recruits and retains underrepresented students. Specifically, this research analyzes how the UIUC admissions office provides information and knowledge to all students, specifically underrepresented students that may not have easy access to information about the activities and opportunities that the UIUC offers. Beyond the recruitment aspect of underrepresented students, it is important to retain these students according to numerous UIUC officials in a series of interviews. this research will examine how the UIUC maintains the numerous of opportunities it offers. It will also help to answer questions on why it is important to 'reach out' to all students, especially underrepresented students throughout the state, nation, and world. The UIUC values diversity greatly, but why is it so important to recruit and most of all retain students? How do underrepresented students benefit the entire UIUC campus? The final aspect of this research will build a foundation for why the former two aspects are important to maintaining a diverse campus, and most of all why is it important to have a diverse campus. The idea of globalization is valued greatly at the UIUC, and this research will culminate by examining why diversity is important at the UIUC and beyond it.
Series/Report Name or Number
Rhetoric 105, Principles of Composition, Race & the University, Instr. Kristin McCann: This course entailed continual negotiation of three primary focuses: academic writing, introduction to ethnographic research methodologies, and critical inquiry into issues of race and representation. I approached this course as a semester-long conversation with students, the texts with which we engaged, and the kairos of the physical and ideological spaces in which we were immersed. I encouraged students to draw upon their expertise as current UIUC undergraduates and to consider their stake in the university’s narratives. Students were, of course, not expected to produce a complete ‘ethnography’; rather, to consider what combination of ethnographic research methodologies might be most useful to their specific essays and research projects and what issues they deemed most exigent for their inquiries. Students also had the opportunity to present at the bi-annual EUI conference, alongside other EUI undergraduate and graduate students. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/RHET105S08.doc
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/8740

Owning Collections

Globalization and the University
This collection examines the influence of globalization on the university and the university's place in a burgeoning world market for higher education.
Student Communities and Culture
The university offers an extraordinary opportunity to study and document student communities, life, and culture. This collection includes research on the activities, clubs, and durable social networks that comprise sometimes the greater portion of the university experience for students.
Diversity on Campus/Equity and Access PRIMARY
This collection examines ways in which the U.S. university and the American college experience are affected by diversity, and difference. In particular, these student projects examine experiences of diversity on campus, including important contemporary social, cultural, and political debates on equity and access to university resources.