Q&A
Questions for TONY MITCHELL
Dr. Tony Mitchell, assistant dean for engineering student services, director of Minority Engineering Programs (MEP) and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, talks about helping some of the nation’s brightest minority engineering students succeed. Mitchell is retiring this fall after a 21-year career with the College. He will continue to serve the College as assistant dean emeritus.
Why is it so important for the College to have programs for underrepresented minority students?
Engineering schools everywhere want gifted minority students, and industry wants them, too. Our job is to beat the competition and get them to NC State. Our programs have helped the College rank in the top five and top six nationally in bachelor’s degrees awarded to African Americans and Native Americans, respectively. Other schools often contact us to learn how we do it.
It starts with recruiting, right?
That’s right. We have a spring minority recruiting weekend for admitted high school seniors. Many of them have been admitted elsewhere as well, so our job is to show them and their parents that NC State is the right place. Many choose NC State, and for them we have our Summer Transition Program in which they can start college a little early and adapt to it.
What happens when the fall semester starts?
We have START — Student Advancement and Retention Teams — led by upper-class students who act as big brothers and big sisters for the first-year students. We also offer a first-year professional development course sequence. The fall course focuses on college strategies and survival skills, while the spring course features mock job interviews.
How does industry get involved?
We have a national advisory board made up of industry members. They often conduct those mock interviews I just mentioned, and they hire our students for jobs and internships. Many board members also offer student scholarships and financial support for our programs.
Tell us about your external work promoting MEP and NC State.
We submit papers on our programs to national and international conferences so others can learn from our experiences. We’ve written about our Summer Transition Program and landing and administering a large National Science Foundation grant, among others. I also do program evaluations for ABET and serve on NSF and NASA review panels. I learn a lot from these experiences, and they open doors for our program and the College.
What other relationships has MEP built outside NC State?
Two of our deepest relationships are with the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) and the National GEM Consortium. Dean Martin-Vega is secretary on GEM’s Executive Committee. Both groups want to enhance the success of minorities in engineering and other technical disciplines. Building these national relationships helps us get minority students in top jobs, and it helps employers get the students they want. It’s a win-win. 