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Inside this issue:
An Interview with Dr. Isiah M. Warner Shirley Vining Brown "Citizen Scientist" Managing Editor:
Yolanda S. George
Making Strides is a quarterly (April, July, October, and January) research newsletter published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Program. Its purpose is to share information about minority graduate education (MGE) in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. It is available in print and electronic format. Inquiries, information related to MGE, and all correspondence should be sent to the editor. rge |
Wanted: A Better Way to Boost Numbers
of Minority Ph.D.s, p.2
Click here for a bigger image New approaches One way is to urge the "majority" universities that churn out the lion's share of U.S. Ph.D.s to lure and retain minorities without setting quotas. Next month, for example, in addition to revamping its fellowship program, NSF hopes to award up to $2.5 million over 5 years to each of eight or so universities that have promised to graduate more minority Ph.D.s in the natural sciences and engineering. "I've been prodding them for years to do something like this," says Representative Louis Stokes (D-OH), who inserted language last fall into NSF's 1998 spending bill that created the Minority Graduate Education (MGE) program and who provided for its continuation in the House version of NSF's 1999 budget bill. "I think we've been making minimal progress, and I think that putting more money into the effort will help." Last month, NSF received more than 50 applications featuring partnerships between majority and minority institutions, mentoring programs, networking, and other ways to funnel more minority students into graduate programs and to lower the barriers to success. Although educators welcome the new program, many caution that it will be hard to change the culture at research universities-even at those with an exemplary record of trying to boost minority participation in science and engineering. For example, Purdue University has earned a national reputation for providing research opportunities for minority undergraduates under a program begun by a trio of faculty members that included biologist Luther Williams, now head of NSF's education directorate that sponsors the MGE program. But the institution still has a long way to go, says Purdue biologist Joe Vanable. "The climate here is no worse than anywhere else, but it's not good," he says. So, Vanable led a group that penned a proposal in response to NSF's new program requesting money for, among other things, intensive workshops aimed at opening the minds of his colleagues on matters of race. But senior university officials questioned the likely impact of such efforts and refused to submit it to NSF. Vanable remains bitter about the decision. "It's a question of priorities," he says. "Once, when enrollment was declining, we were threatened with budget cuts if we didn't improve the numbers. So, we met weekly to come up with ways to succeed. That's never happened with the recruitment of minorities or the hiring of minority faculty." Vanable's lament that minority issues are slighted by the scientific mainstream is common among educators who have labored to raise participation rates. "What I'd like more than anything is a national summit on the subject so that we can see what everybody else is doing," says Joel Oppenheim, director of the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and associate dean of graduate studies at New York University (NYU), who travels around the country seeking minority applicants for the university's summer research program as well as for his graduate school. "We've never had one." |