Making a Way Where There is None.(University of Missouri-Rolla recruits students from the Minority Engineering program of St. Louis Community College District)

Despite those who say minority engineering students are hard to come by, one Missouri school has uncovered a hidden treasure -- the local community college

Attracting minority students into engineering programs is a challenge. A rural Midwestern school such as the University of Missouri-Rolla has double the difficulty, because it is a challenge to attract minority students, period.

At least, that was the issue 10 years ago, when it occurred to university officials that there might be more minority students enrolled in the area's two-year institutions than at the four-year level.

"We realized it might be an untapped market for engineering students," says Dr. Floyd Harris, who heads the Minority Engineering Program at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

As part of its ongoing effort to recruit minority engineering students, the university turned to the St. Louis Community College District, where 23.5 percent of the 30,000 students are African American. Teaming with St. Louis Community College and private industry, Harris helped develop a unique program that has increased the number of the university's minority engineering transfer students from two in 1989 to 42 students in 1999.

"Our numbers are not large, but it has definitely worked for us," Harris says, pointing out that while overall transfer enrollment at the university declined …