Dr. Patricia Somers Named Fulbright Program
New Century Scholar - January 9, 2007

Dr. Patricia Somers, an associate professor in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Administration and coordinator of The University of Texas at Austin’s Higher Education Program, has been selected as a Fulbright Program New Century Scholar. She is one of 30 top education scholars from around the world to be chosen and will be leaving in April for a two-month research visit to Brazil.

The Fulbright New Century Scholars Program (NCS) was created in March of 2001 and extends the mission and outreach of the core Fulbright Scholar Program. It provides a platform for scholars around the world to engage in debate and dialogue based on multidisciplinary research and to develop new global models for understanding the social context within which nations and communities shape their responses.

Somers will be based at Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, two schools with which The University of Texas at Austin has existing collaborations.

While in Brazil, she will be studying four factors in the reform of its higher education system:

1. how K-12 reform efforts have affected the pipeline for higher education;
2. how reform efforts such as affirmative action have affected access to higher education, especially for poor, pardo and black students;
3. how financial changes (stipends, performance funding, etc.) have affected the success of poor, pardo and black students; and
4. measures of student success that can be developed.

Somers also currently is compiling research on sociological and economic factors in college student success into a meta-analysis of student price response from 1986 to 2006. Additionally, she is devising a “Millennial model” of college student access and choice.

“I began in this field researching the influence that financing has on whether or not students decide to attend college,” says Somers, “how they choose a particular college and if they make decisions to enroll and persist.

“My experience in the economics of education, sociology of education and policy analysis, as well as my firsthand experiences in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East will help me bring a unique perspective to collaborative inquiry in Brazil. I feel I can make a significant contribution to the New Scholars Program and I am honored by this opportunity.”

—Kay Randall, University Communications, 512-232-3910

Related Links:

• Dr. Somers Website
• Educational Administration Professor to be in German Documentary about Generation 9/11
• Generation 9/11: an article on Dr. Somers research from 2005