"I am the only Black [full] professor in all six of our science departments, out of 180 faculty members," Walker says.
Three years ago, his colleague, Dr. Clay Bates, another physicist, left Stanford for a position at Howard University. One of the reasons Bates says he left was to improve the pace at which he might develop Black scientists.
Walker has observed that in recent years, the commitment of some of his faculty colleagues to recruiting and retaining African American students seems to have waned.
"Some who are negative and not supportive of diversity have become more emboldened by the general change in the political climate," he says.
Comparing the situation in physics to that of engineering, Walker says the main difference is the a lack of a strategic plan. "Science departments simply have not tried very hard," he says.
In his twelve years as a Stanford mechanical engineering professor, Dr. Godfrey Mungle also is disappointed that he has not yet been able to produce a Black doctoral scholar in his field. Mungle is a Trinidadian immigrant of East Indian descent.
"My daughter is [a teenager]," he says. "When I first got started, I thought I'd have produced several [scholars of color] by now -- people who might teach her when she got ready to go to college. But I've only produced one [not African American] in twelve years."
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