MALE INITIATIVE COMMITTEE “Save the male” MALE INITIATIVE COMMITTEE Admissions, Men's Athletics, Engineering, Student Success Center, ROTC, OMSL, Housing, Psychology, Dean of Student Life and Fraternity Affairs.

Fall 2012 admissions ACT Comparisons The fall 2012 cohort admissions data by gender identifies white male students enter UTK with higher ACT scores 27.49 versus 26.56 for white females and African American females and African American males with identical ACT scores of 23.67.

Fall 2012 High School GPA Comparisons The high school GPA differed by gender with white females averaging 3.96 versus white males at 3.85 and African American females at 3.83 compared to African American males at 3.61.

Fall 2011 Retention data by gender and College The fall 2011 retention data by gender and college identifies the top 5 colleges with significant differences in retention rates are: Architecture and Design 81.4% male versus 96.7% female CASNR- 81.4% versus 91.8% female Education Health and Human Sciences- 82.8% versus 92.1% University undecided – 73.2% versus 82.6% female

Male populations by college Colleges with the largest male populations are Arts and sciences (531), Business (470) Engineering (458) and University Undecided (369).

Committee recommendations and academic support Promote and share four key at risk factors, (1) Major – STEM and Exploratory, (2) Populations- First generation, UT LEAD, MAP, (3) Probation and (4) Lack of involvement in campus organizations and activities. Share the aforementioned male student retention and academic progress data with Advisors and Department Heads.

Committee recommendations and academic support Encourage other Advisors and Department Heads to review parallel major choices in the advising process for male students who are not meeting college academic progress requirements (similar to the College of Business model). Share the aforementioned male student data with the Student Success Center to align with their Academic Coaching and academic success workshops and EAP staff (students who meet their criteria) and the MAP program.

Programmatic support interventions Submit a male student workshop track at the annual Clifton Jones Student Conference and the Black Issues Conference. Explore the ACPA/NASPA May 2012 Regional Male Student Conference (there is also a knowledge community for males at the upcoming NASPA conference). Co-sponsor a campus wide annual male student summit focused on the unique challenges our male students encounter both academically and socially at UTK. The format would include Keynote Speaker, student and faculty panel and student feedback groups. We would also encourage each of the committee members to utilize their sphere of influence to boost attendance, for example, fraternities (Jim Harrison), Resident Hall Assistants (Frank Cuevas), Issues Committee (Dean Davis) UT LEAD (Anton Reece) and Men’s Athletics (Fernandez West).