Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Another university has been trying to increase race relations and minority enrollment. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a program that recruits high school minority seniors. It is called MITES. The program includes a rigorous schedule that crams into six weeks what MIT freshmen go through in one semester. About 50 students participate in the program each year. Approximately one third to one half of each MITES class goes on to enter MIT the following year.

However, this program has not been without problems. National attention was drawn when a MITES member, from inner-city Washington, D.C., accused a professor that worked in the program of being a racist. Part of the program consists of an evaluation and advising session with the professor. The aforementioned professor advised the student to seek out other options concerning college because his chances of admission to MIT were not good. The Wall Street Journal suggested that MITES catered to privileged minorities (Blau).

Yet, MIT has strived with many other programs to have better race relations. The incoming freshmen of 1994 received among other things, a Guide to Studies in Racial, Ethnic and Intercultural Relations as part of the orientation packet. The booklet includes a listing of some eighty subjects that deal with some aspect of cultural awareness, ethnic diversity, and race relations (Stevenson). Additionally, seminars to help eliminate racism have been enacted. These seminars aim to help student and staff more effectively with race relations and to strive towards eliminating racism on campus. They hope to train students how to conduct these seminars by themselves for the future (Shrivastava).

These are the sources I used from MIT's campus newspaper, The Tech

If you would like to get to The Tech Newpaper click here.
To return to my opening page click on Natasha's Reseach Paper.