Support Graduate Fellowships for Women and Minorities Take Action!

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will soon be considering legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is sponsoring legislation to create a new graduate fellowship program that specifically targets women and minorities who are underrepresented in the higher education professoriate. This new program will be called the Patsy T. Mink Graduate Fellowship Program in honor of the late member of Congress from Hawaii who was also a long-time AAUW member and the author of Title IX.

While minority college enrollment continues to grow, the employment of women and minorities as faculty in higher education continues to lag behind; this is especially true for American Indian and Alaskan Natives, and women of color. Minorities make up less than 14 percent of all collegiate faculties.

Women make up only one-third of full-time collegiate faculty, and they tend to be concentrated in less-senior instructional positions and at two-year institutions, as opposed to research universities.

The Mink Graduate Fellowship Program would create a new federal fellowship providing financial support for women and minorities who agree to pursue a doctoral or terminal master’s degree and then teach at the collegiate level, after they have completed their education. This program will provide critically needed graduate funding, as well as work to diversify the higher education professoriate.