The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is establishing the Support for Under-Represented Groups in Engineering (SURGE) program within the College of Engineering. The college leads the nation in total degrees conferred and is recognized as a major international center of excellence in both undergraduate and graduate education, offering an array of research opportunities unmatched in scope and quality. A comprehensive package of financial incentives and programmatic services and activities will be aimed at recruiting persons from underrepresented groups into a PhD program and supporting them to degree completion. SURGE will admit ten new participants each year and provide support to each for five years. The SURGE pipeline will reach steady-state capacity of 40 in the fifth year. SURGE will increase Black and Hispanic enrollment in all doctoral programs by 300% and also increase the number of women and persons with disabilities. In each participant's first year, SURGE will provide a $15,000 stipend (with no requirement of service) and payment of tuition and fees. In subsequent years SURGE will supplement the teaching or research assistantships up to the $15,000 per year level.
