Spring 1997

Dr. Tony Mitchell - Familiar Face Takes Helm In Minority Programs

Dr. Tony Mitchell talks about the many opportunities in engineering with Monique C. Greene, at left, and Dalila A. Butler, two of the College's NCAMP scholars.

A familiar face has returned to the College of Engineering. Dr. Tony Mitchell, an alumnus and former associate professor of computer engineering, is the new director of minority engineering programs for the College.

As the new director, Mitchell has lofty goals. He wants to increase the graduation rate of minorities, increase the number of scholarships available to attract minorities, and implement programs to help minorities succeed during their tenure at the university. Mitchell has a strong base to build on since the previous directors have been successful in increasing the minority presence. The College has the second largest African-American enrollment nationally among majority engineering institutions. With this in mind, Mitchell sees the focus of his office shifting from one of quantity to one of quality.

"I don't see us significantly increasing the minority presence on campus," says Mitchell. "We already have a good pool coming in. What I see as my role is increasing the quality of the entering class. While we have about 17 percent minorities in the entering class and 10 percent minorities in the overall college enrollment, we do not even begin to graduate that percentage."

"My focus is to capture a larger percentage of the really good students that apply and are accepted here," says Mitchell, "because if you start with a better student, then, of course, the chances of that student graduating are increased."

According to Mitchell, the way to accomplish this goal is to increase the number of scholarships available to minorities. Top students, whether minority or majority, are recruited with scholarship offers. All the top engineering institutions compete for minority students from the same pool of top minority high school graduates. "Without scholarship money," says Mitchell, "we cannot compete with the other engineering colleges for those top students."

Within a year of his arrival in September 1995, Mitchell achieved great success in increasing the number of scholarships. Last summer, he was able to obtain funding for 15 new minority scholarships, doubling the number of scholarships available for recruiting minority freshman. The new scholarship money came from a grant from the National Science Foundation through the North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation (NCAMP). Funded by NSF, NCAMP is an alliance of eight state-supported institutions in North Carolina with the specific goal of doubling over the next five years the rate at which minorities earn undergraduate degrees in science, engineering and mathematics. North Carolina A&T State University is the lead school in the alliance. Other member institutions include North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, North Carolina Central University and Fayetteville State University.

In the past, the major source of scholarship money for entering minority students has been the Dean's Scholarships, funded through a program run by the Provost's Office. The College of Engineering received 17 of the $2,500 Dean's Scholarships in each of the past three years. The Provost's Office commits to those scholarships for the first year only, and the College picks up 15 of the 17 for the remaining three years at $1,000 each year. In contrast, the NCAMP scholarships offer $3,000 per year for four years.

"The NCAMP scholarships are the good news," says Mitchell. "The bad news is that the money is committed to students who are enrolled this fall. If we want to offer scholarships to incoming freshmen in 1997, we have to find more money for scholarships. That is what we are working on right now."

While he is working diligently for scholarships for entering freshmen, Mitchell has not forgotten the students already enrolled in the College. To encourage those students, Mitchell has implemented an incentives plan that pays a limited number of one-time scholarships of $500 for significant improvements in grade point averages. The incentive scholarships are funded with money from NCAMP.

"We want to encourage students in the College to bring their averages up to a level that would qualify them for one of our regular NCAMP scholarships," says Mitchell. "These one-time incentive scholarships help them see that hard work really does pay off."

Another goal Mitchell is working to meet is that of improving the minority perception of the university. He wants minority students to see the university as an inviting place to go to school. To achieve that goal, Mitchell oversees a program in which entering minority freshmen are assigned upper-class mentors from the College in addition to the adviser and the university-level mentor assigned to the student.

"We try to pair the freshman and the mentor so they have the same major," says Mitchell. "This gives the student a big brother or sister to go to if they have a problem they don't feel comfortable discussing with our regular staff or with an adviser."

In addition to mentoring, Mitchell's office administers a summer bridge program called the Summer Transition Program (STP). Specifically geared to bridge high school and college, the program allows minority engineering students who will be entering freshmen in the fall to attend the second summer session to take courses and get to know the campus before the overwhelming 27,000-plus students arrive for the fall semester. STP gives the minority students an opportunity to bond with each other and familiarize themselves with the expectations of college. The expense is covered by funds raised by Mitchell's office, with some matching funds from the College. The program is free to minority student participants. Funding in the past covered expenses for only 50 minority students to participate in STP. However, with the NCAMP funding, Mitchell has expanded that number to 75.

"In the past, the STP was designed somewhat to offer remedial instruction, to get students up-to-speed for classes in the fall," says Mitchell. "This year, for the first time, we had 17 students taking Calculus I. So we are realizing our objective to move the program to a more proactive one in which students will start their programs ahead of their cohorts when they enter in the fall. That goes back to increasing the quality of the students. Those 17 students are now ahead of their class this year in the mathematics sequence."

Mitchell also helps the College attract companies to recruit graduating students. One example of success in attracting major companies is the recent developments with Hewlett Packard. Several years ago, as a result of fiscal belt-tightening, NC State was removed from the list of recruitment centers by the national company. However, the company visited the College of Engineering last fall and is expected to announce that the College will be added to the national recruitment list. In addition, Hewlett Packard in Roseville, California, decided last year to name the College of Engineering as one of its top recruiting centers for that regional location. Last fall, the company flew six engineering students targeted for recruitment to the Roseville site. Summer intern offers were made to, and accepted by, four of these students. Hewlett Packard-Roseville also has extended offers of permanent jobs to several engineering seniors. Mitchell expects the relationship between Hewlett Packard and the College to expand in the future.

In addition to administering the various minority programs, Mitchell represents the College as a member of the National Association for Minority Engineering Program Administrators (NAMEPA). He also holds teaching and research faculty status with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, teaching the graduate class ECE 571, Introduction to Data Networks, this spring.

As if his primary College job isn't enough, Mitchell also continues to advise students conducting graduate research in telecommunications and data networks. Of his new job, Mitchell says "It is a challenge. I want to come in and do it all today, but much of what we are doing takes time to show results. I have to remind myself to be patient. I know we can accomplish our goals."

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