This project will enable Texas A&M University through the College of Engineering and the College of Science to establish a Research Careers for Minority Scholars Program (RCMS). The principal objectives will be retention of minority students in science and engineering degree programs, with a particular emphasis on encouragement of these students, through a process of mentoring and research activities, to enter graduate programs in science and engineering at elite institutions, especially at the doctoral level. As a major research institution with 1,400 minority students enrolled in the Colleges of Engineering and Science, Texas A&M is uniquely positioned to bring about a confluence of the components essential to achieving this goal: a well-recognized and highly successful institutional commitment to minority recruitment and retention; nationally recognized research activities and faculty; an extensive network of corporate participants and funding programs to assist its minority students; and most importantly, its large, cohesive and active minority population in engineering and science forms an essential "critical mass" for peer support, encouragement and reinforced career expectations.
