Supplying the missing link with MECCA-A minority students'education

摘要

Since the early 1970s the Purdue Minority Engineering Program(MEP) has conducted a relatively comprehensive program of recruitment,retention, and evaluation directed at improving this data by thesuccessful graduation of African American, Mexican American, PuertoRican, and American Indian students. Program components have includedmotivational recruitment, retention, and evaluation starting withstudents at grade seven and continuing through college graduation. Theunderlining philosophy has been that a comprehensive program isessential and that `one shot' programs that focus on only one or twocomponents will have little if any long range impact. To provide asynergistic context for the MEP program, a Multicultural EngineeringComprehensive Career Academy (MECCA) was envisioned and steps have beentaken to make it a reality. The authors summarize MECCA, including theexisting MEP programs, and focus on what are believed to be the threecritical missing links-an Elementary Out-Reach Program, a ParentInvolvement Program, and a Longitudinal Follow-up Evaluation Program