Under Construction: Building the Engineering Pipeline
The boot camp mentality in engineering programs has lessened over
the years as many schools struggle to retain their minority students
By Ronald Roach
Not since the days of the Sputnik I rocket launch by the former Soviet Union have U.S. policymakers worried so much and so openly about America’s competitiveness on the world stage. The United States feared falling behind in the race for military supremacy and space exploration after Sputnik achieved orbit in 1957. These days, policymakers fret that the country could lose its claim as the world’s most competitive and productive economy. That prospect has even President Bush touting new national initiatives.
“Much of our job growth will be found in high-skilled fields like health care and biotechnology. So we must respond by helping more Americans gain the skills to find good jobs in our new economy,” he told the U.S. Congress and the nation in his State of the Union address in early February.
Many major corporations and national organizations have been pointing to the need for improved K-12 and collegiate opportunities for minorities since the early 1970s. They argued that such an infrastructure would be necessary to provide Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and others with the background to enter the science and engineering work force in meaningful numbers. Yet despite decades of such advocacy, the facts on the ground remain daunting.
“Of the 659,000 minority high school graduates in 2003, only 26,000 had the requisite preparation in science and mathematics to qualify for admission to study engineering or technology at the college level,” says Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, the president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) at the group’s national conference in Northern Virginia last November.
