U.VA. EXPANDS EFFORTS TO RECRUIT MINORITY GRADUATE STUDENTS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 31 -- Two programs to encourage
and help minority students to earn graduate degrees in political
science, the physical and biological sciences, engineering and
mathematics are being established at the University of Virginia.
	They will considerably expand U.Va.'s role in minority
graduate education, which until now has focused largely on a
nationally known program to help minorities prepare for medical
school.
	Preparations are under way for the University to become home
to the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, a program to encourage
outstanding African-American college students throughout the United
States to pursue doctoral work in political science.
	Sponsored by the American Political Science Association and
currently based in Atlanta, the institute selects from 20 to 25
college juniors each year in a national competition. They spend six
weeks attending two graduate-level courses, lectures by prominent
professors and public figures, sessions with graduate school
recruiters and social and cultural events.
	U.Va. is the first school to be sole administrator of the
institute and will be home to it for at least three years starting
next year, said Paula McClain, chair of the Department of Government
and Foreign Affairs. The institute has been managed since its
founding in 1986 by consortiums that included several institutions.
	Faculty from several of Virginia's historically black
colleges and universities, both private and public, will take part
in the program, McClain added. The program is named to honor Ralph
Johnson Bunche, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, first African-American
to earn a Ph.D. in political science and first black president of
the American Political Science Association.
	Doctoral degrees in the physical and biological sciences,
engineering and mathematics are the focus of a second program for
minority students, which the University will take part in starting
this spring.
	U.Va. has agreed to join the National Minority Graduate
Feeder Program (NMGFP), a computer-linked network created to provide
each member school with on-line data on minorities who are promising
prospects for graduate programs in the targeted subject areas.
	Graduate program directors and faculty involved in
recruiting will be able to search the computer database for good
candidates for studies at the University, said William Woolfolk,
U.Va. coordinator for NMGFP. 
 	"They'll search the database for promising candidates on a
regular, routine basis and each time a new study program is
initiated," he said.
	Information on the minority students will be entered in the
system by faculty members at 29 historically black public colleges
and universities around the country, he said. Each of these
institutions was asked to enter data on at least 10 students.
	Members who use the system must appoint a coordinator, offer
financial support for the students they recruit and provide programs
to foster successful completion of the Ph.D. by minorities. Start-up
funding for NMGFP was provided by the GE Fund, and National Computer
Systems donated free transmittal of data throughout the system for
one year.
	Scores of minority students have graduated from or are
enrolled in medical school after completing U.Va.'s Medical Academic
Advancement Program (MAAP), which recently celebrated its 11th
anniversary by receiving a $1 million grant from the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation. Just three other minority medical education
programs across the nation received awards from the foundation.
	MAAP was designed to give promising minority and
disadvantaged college students added educational experiences and
exposure to mentors, to improve their ability to apply for and do
well in medical school. Summer sessions include intensive reviews of
physical and biological sciences, reading and essay writing.
	Of students who have completed MAAP and applied to medical
school, 84 percent have been accepted and enrolled. No MAAP graduate
who attended the U.Va. School of Medicine has ever failed.
	McClain said the Bunche Institute program will benefit the
University by improving its image as an institution that welcomes
and nurtures minority students, helping it recruit minorities and
giving the Government and Foreign Affairs programs more visibility
nationally.
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March 30, 1995