CHARLOTTE, N.C.
Four historically Black North Carolina colleges and universities will partner with four majority White counterparts in Virginia to double the average number of minorities completing degrees in science, technology, engineering and math.

The VA-NC-Alliance for Minority Participation will combine university exchange programs with intensified, personal instruction to bring the number of Black, Latino and American Indian tech graduates to 1,050 over the next five years.

The University of Virginia in Charlottesville will lead the program, supported by a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation as it tries to pull more American students into “STEM” fields.

“We must receive the talent from whatever source, whatever part of our country that is available. You never know where the next Nobel prize laureate will come from,” said A. James Hicks, who has helped organize similar alliances involving 37 states.

North Carolina participants include Bennett College for Women, in Greensboro; Elizabeth City State University; Saint Augustine’s College, in Raleigh; and Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte.

At Smith, the effort means a summer immersion program teaching students firm study habits, as well as formal opportunities to share resources, said B.K. Chopra, a biology professor and alliance participant.

“It’s going to place many of these students in several research programs during the summer and eventually into graduate programs where we desperately need minorities,” he said.

In addition to U.Va., the Virginia participants are: George Mason University, in Fairfax; Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond; and Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg.

Of almost 4,500 STEM degrees the eight schools conferred between 2001 and 2005, barely 12 percent went to Blacks, Latinos and American Indians.

“All the schools have had some participation in this area and we’ve all done some things, but what this enables us to do is to work collectively,” explained Carolyn Vallas, director of U.Va.’s Center for Diversity in Engineering.

Schools will organize high school outreach programs aimed at recruiting and retaining minorities in science and engineering, Vallas said. Students also may spend time at other alliance campuses.

For instance, a student from Bennett might live in a George Mason dorm while interning in technology-rich Washington, D.C.

“In the past, the student might have a difficult time taking that position because they don’t have a place to stay within their budget,” Vallas said.

Alliance students also will meet periodically to share what they’ve learned -- a chance for minorities in largely White-identified majors to bond.

It’s a support system acutely missing at some majority institutions, said Darryl Dickerson, chairman of the National Society of Black Engineers, and a biomedical engineering student at Indiana’s Purdue University.

“Minority students, particularly at majority institutions, they’re already isolated,” Dickerson said. “At the very beginning, you’re thinking you’re on the chopping block.”

The National Science Foundation has increasingly turned to Blacks, Latinos and American Indians as it attempts to boost the number of students earning scientific degrees. Asians are considered better-represented in the STEM fields.

STEM degrees can translate into high-paying jobs, from engineering anti-terrorism measures to building the next iPhone.

But minorities tend not to be interested when their only image of a scientist is “an older White male with glasses and a white coat on,” Hicks said.

Hicks, who is Black, entered the sciences after a professor gave him the lab coat off his back and urged him to switch majors. Hicks thought creating a community among minority STEM majors would help current majors excel, and pull new ones in.

“When they are brought together in a sort of nurturing environment, we see what happens,” he said. “And what happens is that students from these targeted groups will perform and perform very well.”

At Smith, Shenita Richardson was one of a handful of Black students listening as Chopra explained the day’s lesson recently.

The graduating senior was excited about the school’s new immersion program and the leg up it would mean for the students coming behind her.

“When I was a freshman, I wasn’t prepared,” she said. “I thought it was gonna be easy.”

- Associated Press