Outreach

The goal of outreach is to increase your applicant pool. UW departments have developed and utilize many tools to achieve this:

  • Recruitment fairs and conferences
  • Summer programs
  • Broad-based and one-to-one marketing
  • Utilization of student databases
  • Strategic partnerships and pipelines
  • Social media and websites
  • readily identifies prospective students,
  • gives them clear and appealing information on what you offer and
  • establishes initial relationships among prospective students and your faculty, staff and graduate students.
  • State your department’s commitment to diversity on all recruiting materials.
  • Address diversity on your departmental website by highlighting programs and efforts that address diversity and by providing links to select UW student organizations, GSEE and cultural centers in the community. Examples: Information Science, History, Environmental and Forest Sciences and English.
  • In your web content and recruiting materials, identify:
    • programs of study that may be of interest to students who wish to explore diversity in their disciplines,
    • faculty whose research and teaching encompasses the complexities, conflicts and benefits of diversity in the field, and
    • courses of study and recent dissertation work that addresses topics related to diversity as academic fields.
  • Develop and post on your website videos that highlight faculty and students in your academic programs. Example: Mechanical Engineering.
  • Ensure your department participates in the National Name Exchange, an online database which is maintained by the UW Graduate School. More than 54 nationally-known universities share names of promising minority undergraduates who are interested in pursuing graduate education.
  • Offer minority and other underrepresented minority students Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in your undergraduate program to spark their interest in research and graduate careers. Examples: Physics and the Undergraduate Research Program.
  • Partner with K-12, community college and undergraduate programs that serve minority and underrepresented minority students—among them Upward Bound, GEAR-UP, MESA, McNair Scholars Program, Gates Millennium Scholars and College Success Foundation.
  • Participate in recruitment fairs, conferences, on-campus events and visits to feeder institutions. Example: School of Social Work
  • Expand your program’s visibility by communicating with colleges and universities that serve large numbers of underrepresented minority students, such as historically-black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
  • Encourage former students who are now at other colleges and universities to recommend the UW for graduate study.
  • Take advantage of faculty networking opportunities. When faculty members present at colleges and universities, or attend conferences, ask them to connect with underrepresented minority students. Ask your faculty to work with host institutions to identify students who may be interested in the UW.
  • Send faculty to meetings of organizations such as the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).