Interphase EDGE hit with declined enrollment for current cohort amidst student speculation of broader trends
The program’s current cohort size of 30 falls well below expectations and follows similarly lower enrollment from the preceding cohort.
Student enrollment for the 2024 Interphase EDGE program has reportedly declined to around 30 students, according to student sources.
Hosted by the Office of Minority Education (OME), Interphase EDGE is a “two-year scholar enrichment program” aimed at helping ease the transition to MIT for incoming students, according to its page on the OME website. The program mainly consists of students from underrepresented backgrounds but is open to all incoming students.
The program includes an eight-week residential summer module in which incoming MIT students come to campus and take classes to prepare for their first year at MIT. According to the OME website, Interphase EDGE usually consists of “70 scholars,” while its remote sister program Interphase EDGEx has “20 scholars,” numbers that are consistent with enrollment data from recent years. Current students are recruited to support each year’s cohort as Residential Facilitators (RFAs) for the residential summer module and as Associate Advisors over the academic year. The 2024 cohort’s initial eight-week session began on June 18 and is set to conclude on August 9.
Student sources familiar with the program, including a current student RFA for Interphase EDGE who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation from the program’s leadership, attested to an approximate enrollment of 30. The Tech was unable to identify the number of students currently enrolled in EDGEx.
Approximately 20 RFAs staff the residential summer component this year, a number that has stayed about the same since the program last fully met enrollment expectations in 2022.
The 2023 cohort for Interphase EDGE—which was finalized by program administrators weeks before the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action that June—also fell below expectations with an estimated 50 scholars participating, according to a student from that cohort.
The apparent low enrollment numbers for this year’s cohort raised alarm amongst students as a wave of speculation spread across campus, even prior to the commencement of the program’s summer component, of possible links to ongoing organizational changes within the OME, reported knowledge gaps due to issues in staff retention, and the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action programs in college admissions.
A spokesperson from the OME did not provide indication of whether this year’s enrollment was linked to speculated circumstantial factors and did not verify the enrollment data obtained by The Tech. It is not immediately clear that the program’s low enrollment for the upcoming cohort is representative of a broader trend across all campus minority-serving initiatives or ongoing speculation regarding the incoming Class of 2028, or that the change may have been signaled by the Supreme Court’s action.
“It is true that this year we have had fewer students attend the on-campus program than typical,” OME Interim Director Diep Luu said in an email to The Tech. “However, not all students we invite to Interphase EDGE/x choose to come, and it is hard to know all the various factors—from student/family schedules, competing opportunities, changing personal interests and so on—that might influence the final participation number.”
Many students who spoke with The Tech who are familiar with the program either through their time as scholars or as staffers corroborated on a level of disorganization that has followed the program in recent years. According to the students, Interphase EDGE underwent a transitional period following former program director Somiya Kalloo’s departure in 2023. Kalloo was last involved in the 2022 program and left prior to the commencement of the 2023 program.
The Tech was unable to reach out to Kalloo ahead of this article’s publication. She currently works as Associate Director for MITES Programs, another minority-serving initiative at MIT that operates independently of the OME.
Additionally, the students indicated that Kalloo’s departure—having been affiliated with Interphase EDGE and the OME for many years up until that point since joining the office in January 2014—led to a “knowledge gap” amongst the program’s administrators that has reportedly caused persistent operational problems. This issue also coincides with reported frequent turnovers across the OME, in which staffers are said to have left the office or transitioned into other roles across the Institute, within just a few years of their tenure.
Although the 2024 Interphase EDGE cohort is smaller than that of previous years, the program’s format and structure remain largely unaffected. Modifications made to this year’s program include smaller class sizes and fewer sections for classes.
The decrease in Interphase EDGE enrollment also coincides with recent changes surrounding the Institute’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)-centered initiatives, including the elimination of diversity statements for faculty hiring and the potential restructuring of the OME.