The protégé effect in the retention of underrepresented minority undergraduate teaching assistants in geoscience: Preliminary indications from Newark, New Jersey

Abstract

A summer scholars institute to introduce urban underrepresented minority (URM) high school students to applied geosciences at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, had the unanticipated effect of markedly increasing (a) retention of undergraduate URM geoscience majors who served as teaching assistants in the institute and (b) recruitment of URM college students to the geoscience program. A study of the URM teaching assistants shows that they felt responsible to serve as positive role models for the URM high school students. As a result, the teaching assistants became committed to succeeding in college and in careers in the geosciences. This attitude is attributed to the protégé effect. The camaraderie of the teaching assistants formed the basis of a self-supporting learning/social community of URM geoscience majors within the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University that attracted URM students from other majors. The recruitment of high school students had no impact on department enrollment until at least 3 years later. As a result of this retention and recruitment, the percentage of URM students in the department increased to approximately 50% and enrollment doubled in 3 years. Using the protégé effect is a potential best practice for increasing diversity in the geosciences, especially in urban areas.

Keywords:

• Protégé effect
• urban underrepresented minority students
• role models

Acknowledgments

A full IRB was approved by Rutgers University for this study. Suggestions from four anonymous reviewers and two editors improved the manuscript and are greatly appreciated.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant OEDG-0703673 to Gates and others.