The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the Rochester
(N.Y.) City School District have teamed with the National Action
Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) to offer the Engineering
Vanguard Program — an initiative aimed at increasing the number of
minority students seeking engineering careers.
Instead of relying on standardized tests, the program uses an
assessment process to determine potential for academic success.
Qualifying students receive intense academic preparation in high school
and full tuition and housing scholarships for college.
Rochester is the fourth city to become involved in the NACME
program since the initiative’s inception in 1994. The other cities
involved are New York, Houston, and Philadelphia.
“Engineers are educated, not born,” says George Campbell Jr.,
NACME’s president and CEO. “Our goal … is to create a rich, deeply
stimulating academic environment — one that places a premium on both
diversity and achievement.”
For more information, contact RIT’s Kathy Lindsley at (716) 475-5061; or get in touch with NACME at (212) 279-2626.
Cornell University’s Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences,
located in New York City, has established an internship program for the
training of underrepresented minority college students in the
biomedical sciences.
Besides gaining hands-on basic research experience at either Weill
Medical College or the Sloan-Kettering Institute, students are also
required to participate in a seminar course on career opportunities for
doctorates.
The internships provide a stipend of $3,300, subsidized housing,
and travel expenses. Students must carry individual medical insurance,
and preference will be given to those with GPAs of 3.0 or above.
The program begins June 14 and ends August 6; applications must be
received by February 1, 1999. For an application and more information,
contact Francoise Freyre at (212) 746-6120.
Researchers at the University of Washington and Yale University
have developed a new tool to measure people’s “unconscious prejudice.”
But they cautioned that results from the Implicit Association Test —
which detects unconscious prejudice in nine of ten people — could be
disturbing, especially among those who consider themselves
prejudice-free.
UW’s Anthony Greenwald and Yale’s Mahzarin Banaji, both psychology
professors, recently activated a World Wide Web site that allows people
to test their own inadvertent prejudice and stereotyping on four
levels: Black people vs. White people, old vs. young, gender
stereotypes, and self-esteem — whether there’s an automatic preference
for oneself.
Although Banaji theorized that the ingrained prejudices appear to
be cultural influences learned over the course of a lifetime, Greenwald
was especially bothered to find the test uncovered subtle prejudices in
himself.
“I really don’t believe I’m prejudiced, but I believe I have what I
conveniently describe as the unconscious roots of prejudice,” he said.
Frequently, according to the psychologists, people are completely
unaware they have such attitudes, which can be the exact opposite of a
person’s stated — or “explicit” — views.
The Web address is
— Compiled by Black Issues staff and news services
COPYRIGHT 1998 Cox, Matthews & Associates
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
