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BY ANDREA M. HAMILTON In an effort to match at the graduate level its success in diversifying the undergraduate student population, Stanford has hired Claudia Schweikert, JD '95, MBA '02, as assistant dean for graduate diversity. In her new job Schweikert will focus on recruitment and retention of minority graduate students by supporting and coordinating activities across all schools and departments. "Our goal here is to improve graduate diversity, similar to the undergraduate student body," said Godfrey Mungal, associate dean for graduate policy. "We are delighted to get going on this with Claudia. She brings a lot of enthusiasm, and all the things from her background were very appealing to us." In recruitment, Schweikert said her first focus will be on college students. This could include outreach programs for seniors as well as summer programs designed to provide research experience for freshmen, sophomores and juniors and to sharpen their interests in specific areas, "to give them a better idea whether they'd like to go to graduate school," she said. A second effort will involve developing programs for high school students, "to get them interested in whatever fields, thinking about where they might go to college and get them on a more academic track," she added. In terms of retention, Schweikert said the first order of business is to figure out specifically what the issues are, such as what the attrition rate is in different schools. "Law and business tend to graduate 100 percent of their students, but other programs have higher attrition rates," she said. "We need to look at where students are getting stuck, how we can improve mentoring," as well as financial issues. After earning her law degree here, Schweikert worked as an attorney and in business management. While at Stanford, she co-chaired the association of Latino law students and was co-president of the Hispanic Business Students Association. She also held internships at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. |
Claudia Schweikert
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Stanford Report, April 23, 2003
