The NSP faculty gender distribution and the NSP graduate student gender distribution in 2022.

 

Faculty gender graph

 

 

Student Gender Distribution

 

The NSP graduate student race distribution in 2022.

 

Graduate Student Race Distribution 2022

 

Graduate Student Recruitment Plans

One of the major goals of the NSP is to increase the number of Underrepresented Minority (URM) graduate students. The URM refers to racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in biomedical research: Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders. (https://diversity.nih.gov/about-us/population-underrepresented). Currently, the URM students consist of 18.6% of the NSP graduate students. In 2022, the NSP Diversity committee plans to do the following:

 

  • To recognize outstanding URM applicants, the committee plans to strengthen the NSP relationship with the U of I campus recruiting program (ASPIRE Illinois) and summer undergraduate research programs (The McNair Scholar's program, Summer Predoctoral Institute (SPI), The Illinois Summer Research Symposium).
  • To recruit outstanding URM applicants, the committee plans to launch a recruitment relationship   between the NSP and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Importantly, the committee will establish an active partnership with the NSP graduate admission committee to develop a program that can increase the recruitment of URM students.
  • To retain the URM students and help them attain PhD, the committee has launched the DEI seminars as a part of the core NSP seminar series and will host a DEI workshop in the annual NSP retreat. The committee is also planning to implement annual climate surveys to assess NSP climate and to recognize the area for improvements and interventions.

Faculty Recruitment Plans

Another major goal of the NSP is to increase the number of URM and female NSP faculty members. In 2022, the NSP Diversity committee plans to work together with the NSP executive committee to develop a specific recruiting strategy to recognize and recruit outstanding female and/or URM faculty in the U of I whose research involves neuroscience.