Finalist

The RWJF Center's accomplishments over four years have been substantial:

• Recruiting 28 pre-doctoral and 7 dissertation fellows, most of them from the target populations: Nearly 95 percent of fellows are under-represented minorities. Further, about 85 percent of fellows are Latino/as and American Indians.
• Over half of fellows are in the target disciplines of economics, political science and sociology.
• Three fellows recently graduated (in psychology and in communications and journalism and in economics) and placed in tenure track academic positions.
• Expanding the fellowship program to include post-doctoral fellows (five have been funded and successfully placed in tenure track academic positions).
• Developing a wide array of academic enrichment, academic support, leadership, and professional development activities to prepare fellows to succeed in their studies and become future leaders.
• Hiring one junior faculty each in the three target social science departments (economics, political science, and sociology) and two in public health.
• Building internal and external collaborations to enhance the intellectual life of the Center and create opportunities for fellows to engage in research and policy analysis; Creating an infrastructure to support student and faculty research; Obtaining support from other sources for the post-doctoral fellowships (i.e., National Institutes of Health).

• Since the inception of the program in 1990, more than 300 Latino students have completed the MBE degree.
• During one period, 154 entered the program and 151graduated; over the life of the program.
• The graduation rate has been greater than 90%.
• Program effectiveness has also been shown by promotion and assumption of new duties by graduates in their schools and school districts: in two surveys in different years, more than 50% had received promotions or been given significant new responsibilities within three years of graduation.
• Each graduate, on average, has taught at least 200 students. The graduates have thus had an impact on at least 60,000 bilingual learners, their parents, and communities. In addition, recent MBE graduates have served on the board of the Texas Association for Bilingual Education and as officers of the Bilingual/ESL Association of the Metroplex.

Since 1,344 students have graduated; 744 at the undergraduate and 600 at the graduate level. Retention rate for the first year, 2003, was 78%; after the first year, rates have consistently been over 80%, with 88% for 2011.

A study following the 220 students first enrolled in Orlando in Fall 2003 and the 174 first enrolled in South Florida in Fall 2006 indicates that in Orlando, 96 students have graduated for a 43.6% graduation rate, and in South Florida, 93 students have graduated, for a 53.4% graduation rate. This rate compares favorably with the national 30% rate for Hispanic serving public and private universities.

The campuses have an ongoing process whereby students are assessed by faculty experts as to the degree to which they have achieved the discipline and language objectives of their courses. Completed assessment exercises at both levels indicate that students satisfactorily meet both discipline and language objectives.

From 2003 to 2010, 78 new doctoral students enrolled in the doctoral programs. Of these, 11 (13%) were Latinos. SMS has also made faculty diversity a priority: 10 of the 37 faculty members whose primary appointments are in SMS are either Latino or African-American. Over the past 10 years, 118 doctoral students have graduated from the Department of SMS. Of these, 10 or 8.5% were Latinos. Of the 22 Latino students who have matriculated in the program in the past 15 years, 14 have earned their degrees, 7 are currently making good progress towards that goal, and only 3 have withdrawn from the program. During the previous 4-year period that the IMSD has supported doctoral training, 4 Latinos earned doctoral degrees.