Academic Diversity
Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence is Home to DDCE Academic Diversity Initiatives The Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence (LCAE) is the cornerstone of Academic Diversity Initiatives within the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE). It is home to the Summer Scholars, Gateway Scholars, Longhorn Link, and Ronald E. McNair Scholars programs, all of which support first-generation and underrepresented college students. Since DDCE assumed responsibility for the LCAE in 2007, Dr. Leonard Moore, associate vice president for Diversity and Community Engagement and Dr. Ge Chen, assistant vice president, have established new benchmarks for success and have ramped up the center’s offerings. The LCAE now serves three times as many students as it did three years ago and has expanded services in all of its programs.
Graduate Research Assistants and Summer Scholars Program Coordinators Darren Kelly (far left) and Rian Carkhum (fourth from left) also served as advisors and mentors to the 28 students who participated in 2010.
16
Division of Diversity and Community Engagement • The University of Texas at Austin
“Our goal is to be the premier academic success unit in the country.” —Dr. Leonard Moore, Associate Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement The Summer Scholars program helps firstgeneration and underrepresented students make the transition from high school to a large university through a six-week program that allows them to get to know their way around the university, bond with peers, and meet professors. This past summer a total of 28 students participated; 15 of them were freshmen athletes. Moore explained, “In the past, we’ve had some football players get in trouble. Now the minute they finish high school we’ve got to get them on campus so they see themselves as students. This summer it was just phenomenal. They fell in. A lot of them said, ‘Doc, we didn’t study a lot in high school,’ but you could see their confidence rise throughout the summer. That confidence is needed going into fall when there are 50,000 other students.” Many of the students in Summer Scholars transition in the fall to the Gateway Scholars program, where they get early registration privileges and smaller class sizes. They also receive academic advising and mentoring from a staff that includes Executive Director Dr. Aileen Bumphus, Assistant Director Tiffany Tillis, Academic Support Specialists Dr. James Brown and Elena Payne-Wiens, and six graduate research assistants—many of whom come from backgrounds very similar to those of the Gateway participants. Not only do students get mentoring and academic advising, they also receive