For the seventh year in a row, the CIE was invited to attend the Southern Regional Education Board’s (SREB) 25th Institute on Teaching and Mentoring held at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia from October 25-28. This event is the largest gathering of underrepresented minority Ph.D. scholars in the country. For over 24 years, the Institute has provided workshops, recruitment and networking opportunities to enhance the professional development of the Ph.D. scholars with effective tools to be successful as faculty in post-secondary institutions. The goal of the Institute is to provide a safe environment for doctoral scholars to share insights and survival tips for success in graduate work, build community among themselves and faculty representatives and enrich their research and teaching strategies.

The CIE’s participation in this important event was two-fold. First, through our AGEP project, we were given the opportunity to nominate CIE scholars to attend as participants and benefit from the wide range of professional development and career opportunities offered by the Institute. This included access to over 80 recruiters and senior administration from a wide variety of institutions who were in search of fresh new talent to diversify their faculty ranks. The Institute provided the opportunity for these representatives to connect directly with scholars who were in search of career opportunities. The second aspect of the CIE’s participation in this conference was to participate as recruiters. This year, our focus was to recruit applicants for our IRACDA postdoctoral training program and share information about other postdoctoral training and faculty opportunities available at SBU.

Currently, only approximately 6 percent of U.S. faculty members are African-American, and only 5 percent are Hispanic or Latino. Meanwhile, the diversity of the nation’s college students is growing rapidly, up to 14 percent African-American and 17 percent Hispanic in 2016. This is what makes this event so important. We congratulate SREB on their 25 years of success and look forward to our continued participation in the future.