When Dr. Ted Greenwood talks about boosting the number of it
under-rep presented minority doctoral holders in the sciences, there is
a no-nonsense resolute quality to his voice.
“Some [philanthropists] Put money in the Students’ hands directly.
We don’t do that,” he says. “We put the money in the hands of faculty,”
Greenwood is the program officer of a four-year-old program funded
by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It was designed with input from
science and engineering faculty around the country and awards roughly
$3 million in grants annually to individual faculty members or Clusters
of faculty Who have a proven track record for producing African
American and other under-represented doctoral graduates in mathematics,
science, and engineering.
The funds are explicitly earmarked for helping faculty increase
their yield exponentially over a three-year period. So, for example, a
faculty member or research team that is producing two doctoral students
from under-represented groups in the sciences each year would receive
money to increase that yield to four over the three-year period Faculty
already producing four would he expected to produce eight by the end of
the grant period. Program funds cannot he used to sustain pre-funding
production rates.
To receive an award, applicants must submit a detailed plan for how
they intend to achieve the increased yield, such as recruitment
activities, retention programs, fellowship grants and so on. The plan
must then he approved by the foundation before any funds are disbursed
Throughout the grant period, recipients are required to keep abreast of
their progress and adjustments are made to the strategy if it is agreed
that such intervention is needed.
Faculty from Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Auburn University, City College of New York, Cornell University, Rice
University, and the University of Maryland-College Park are among those
who have participated in the program,
Participating faculty have also come from an array of science and
engineering departments — including I Lid in botany, chemistry,
toxicology, materials engineering, and atmospheric sciences.
