Xenia Rivera has no doubts. Her future includes graduate school.

"I'm going to get a teaching credential and a master's degree. There is a strong possibility I want to get a Ph.D.," said Rivera, a 34-year-old senior majoring in math and Spanish at California State University, Long Beach. "It's important to enhance your life. The more education you get, the better life you're going to have."

That's why Rivera came to the 2004 Southern California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education, held Saturday at CSU Channel Islands. The annual event gives college students an opportunity to meet with recruiters and learn more about how to get into graduate school, pay for it, and succeed once they are enrolled.

The forum is put on by a consortium of 36 public and private colleges and universities in Southern California, with sponsorship from the CSU and the University of California.

It began in 1991 as a way to recruit more minority students into graduate programs, with the hope that the effort would also help diversify the faculty of the state's universities.

"It's very important to us who's going into those doctoral programs, because that's who we're going to be recruiting from," said Keith "Kip" Polakoff, associate vice president for graduate and undergraduate studies at CSU Long Beach, who is one of the forum's founders.

Most four-year colleges and universities require doctoral degrees of their full-time faculty members. But women and minorities participate in doctorate programs at noticeably lower percentages than they are enrolled in the total college-going population.

While 56 percent of college students in 2002 were women, and 28 percent were minorities, women earned only 45 percent, and minorities 19 percent, of the 39,955 doctoral degrees awarded that year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Unaware of opportunities

Many of today's minority undergraduates are first-generation college students who are unaware of the opportunities available in graduate school, or that there are programs available to help them pay for it, said Mark Westlye, director of graduate student advancement at the UC Office of the President.

"Students simply don't know it, and that causes them not to even consider it," said Westlye, who also helped found the forum. "We bring faculty in to give them a one-on-one experience. They can ask questions directly."

The forum was a valuable tool for Shingoon Hong, a 20-year-old sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles, who is interested in graduate programs for urban and environmental policy.

"I think any program that promotes diversity in higher education is very important. Opportunities for minorities at this level are very minimal," he said. "The forum gave me a lot of good information about getting ready for graduate school -- networking and other aspects of preparing."

Louinn Lota grew up in the Philippines and now lives in Los Angeles, where she is working on a master's degree in religious studies at Mount St. Mary's College. She's planning to pursue a doctorate when she's finished, so she came to learn more about some of the programs available.

She wasn't considering Boston College, even though the school offers four doctoral degrees in theology.

Then she met Rob Howe, the school's assistant dean for graduate studies.

"I had this stereotype in my head of what Boston College would be -- mainly Caucasian, mostly men," Lota said. "He just blew away all those stereotypes. That really gave me a good feeling."

Lota now has another school on her list and another option for her future.

Rivera learned how to apply to graduate school at a forum workshop. She also learned she doesn't need a master's degree to get a doctorate, and she was inspired by the speakers, several of whom were first-generation college students, as she is now.

"To me, it's very inspiring," Rivera said. "If they could do it, I can do it too. We need to see examples."

That's one of the benefits of the program, organizers say. Some of the panelists now are former students who attended the forum when they were in school. The success stories roll easily off Polakoff's tongue.

"All of us involved in working directly with graduate students have students who have gone on to get Ph.D.s and now teach at the university level," he said.

"It happened to me," said JoAnn Aguirre, a member of the forum organizing committee who was a first-generation college student at CSU Long Beach. She now holds a doctorate and directs the California Pre-Doctoral Scholars Program, another effort to improve graduate school diversity.

'Planting a seed'

The program, based at the CSU Chancellor's office, gives students who are planning to get doctorates grants to visit schools, attend professional conferences, participate in research internships and more.

"It's about planting a seed," Aguirre said of the forum and other efforts. "It's a way to motivate them to keep pursuing their dreams."

A study last year by the California Research Bureau indicates programs that encourage more diversity in graduate school might be paying off. The study found the number of women and minorities on the faculty at CSU has increased over the past 15 years.

The numbers of minorities, however, still do not reflect the state's overall population. According to the 2000 census figures, minorities make up slightly more than half of the state's population.

But at CSU campuses, only about 25 percent of the full-time faculty members are minorities, while at University of California campuses, less than 20 percent of the full-time faculty members are minorities.

CSU Channel Islands, however, is doing better than the state average. Of the 46 full-time faculty teaching this semester, 33 percent are racial and ethnic minorities, including 15 percent who are Hispanic.

Committed to diversity

The university, which opened just 18 months ago, is committed to building a diverse campus, President Richard Rush said. The school's hosting of the forum is evidence of that.

"Diversity is very important to us. We try to live it and to celebrate it," Rush said. "This is one of the ways we can give tangible notice of our support of it."

Economics professor Dennis Muraoka first suggested the idea to Rush more than a year ago. Before coming to CSU Channel Islands, Muraoka taught at CSU Long Beach, where he met Polakoff and helped him recruit students to attend the diversity forum. Muraoka became the new university's representative to the organizing group, and it wasn't long before the group suggested CSU Channel Islands host the event.

"This event is just a wonderful event for the students. That's why I like it so much," Muraoka said. "It also recognizes we've got to diversify our student body so we can grow our own faculty. And it's a way for us to establish an identity, especially in an area that is important for us -- our commitment to diversity."

Sponsoring the event also gives CSU Channel Islands greater visibility. Many of the 120 graduate school recruiters attending the conference are learning about CSU Channel Islands for the first time, and support services such as testing agencies also are getting a first look at the campus.

Many of the 1,200 students who attended also made their first visit to the campus. They are students who, if they follow through on their plans to attend graduate school, could eventually come back to teach at CSU Channel Islands.

But Rush said those are just side benefits.

"We would host it just to support students," he said. "It's really about moving students upward in their careers, to support students in their aspirations to get graduate education. Fundamentally, we would do it for that alone."