Earlier in his career, Dr. Luther S. Williams spent nearly ten years as the only faculty member of color out of seventy in his department at Purdue University. The African American microbiologist is now assistant director of education and human resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
As an assistant director at NSF, he has set his sights on the ambitious goal of helping colleges and universities expand the pool of under-represented science and engineering undergraduates from its current level of 24,000 to 50,000 students by the year 2001. In doing so, he also intends to expand their ranks among graduate students.
There is little doubt that Williams’s experiences in the academy and in industry are what have made him so adamant about the need for systemic transformation among science and engineering disciplines within higher education.
“You cannot sit in a research institution in isolation and succeed,” he says. “You may be successful one time…but if you really want to succeed, you need to create a national network …. Too many people act like, `if the solution will present itself without effort, I’m not opposed to it.’
“But anyone who takes time to understand science and engineering knows that it is a downstream event. How can you imagine an enterprise that is so excruciatingly competitive and so hierarchical is going to accommodate itself to a sort of laissez faire approach to successful participation by people who, heretofore, really were not a part of it?
“You’ve got to be pragmatic. You’ve got to have a highly specific strategy, and it has to be sufficiently incentivized so that it is not seen as a destructive transaction…. A variety of schools have done this and have done this well — and they have been able to sustain it.
“To use an overworked colloquial expression, it is not rocket science.”
Succeeding at Stanford
When Dr. Noe Lozano took charge of Stanford University’s effort to increase the number of under-represented minority graduate students being produced by its engineering school, he knew the challenge was great. He also felt up to tackling it.
Between 1989, the time Lozano began, and 1996, Stanford’s engineering school increased its enrollment of under-represented minority doctoral candidates from twenty-nine to sixty. The African American share of this group grew from nine to twenty-four students. The Chicano (Mexican-American) share of the cohort grew from five students to sixteen; Puerto Ricans from 13 to 18; and Native Americans remained constant at 2.
“Finding [competitive under-represented students] is not the problem” says Lozano, associate dean for minority affairs at the school of engineering. “It’s tough to get them because there is not a large number and everyone wants them.”
By “everyone,” Lozano’s colleague Dr. Geneva Lopez explains, they mean schools of science, medical schools, MBA programs, engineering schools, and other professional and graduate programs. Lopez is the assistant dean of multicultural graduate student services at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. Her school uses a minority locator service offered by a national testing service to help identify the most competitive African American Graduate Record Exam takers.
“We’re all competing for the same students,” she says.
To improve the engineering school’s track record, Lozano first focused on creating a better mechanism for attracting under-represented minority students at the master’s degree level. Next, he created an infrastructure of support systems to ensure these students’ success.
Stanford’s Engineering Minority Programs (EMP), which Lozano directs, engages in student recruitment; offers financial support, advising, and tutoring services; develops student leadership skills; and offers a host of other programs aimed at creating a learning environment in which under-represented graduate students can excel. Today, the program awards roughly $800,000 to new and continuing graduate students, with an emphasis on those pursuing Ph.D.s. It also uses university funds to leverage student fellowships and assistantships and to attract matching funds from other sources.
One example of such a match program is a $690,590 five-year award the school received in 1995 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to double the number of under-represented minority doctorates it produces in electrical and mechanical engineering (see story, page 25).
The Sloan award was matched by $734,000 from the university and was used to: provide ten new Ph.D. fellowships and twenty research assistantships for minority graduate students; reimburse faculty for taking student recruitment trips; provide twenty research fellowships for promising undergraduates; and create a stronger support environment for minority Ph.D. students.
Even with sophisticated programs like these, however, which are credited with helping Stanford attract more Black graduate students, the overall percentage of African Americans enrolled in the engineering school — undergraduate through doctoral — has remained relatively constant, hovering between 4 and 5 percent for nearly a decade. Overall, enrollment at the school has increased by roughly 250 students. Asians and foreign students accounted for the largest share of this growth. The percentage of Whites dropped by nearly 10 percent.
Lozano and Lopez are part of a small network of administrators at Stanford who share the same goal — to produce more under-represented students in science, math, engineering, and technology disciplines (SMET, to use National Science Foundation terminology). With the enthusiastic support of President Gerhard Caspar, these programs serve students from the undergraduate through the doctoral level. The progress made by the engineering school, however, hasn’t overcome all of the challenges. And Lozano’s results are not evenly mirrored by the university’s other math-based graduate programs. Challenges for Black Graduate Students
Stanford graduate student Rachele Harley is pursuing a doctorate in chemistry. She is the only Black woman in her department and explains that in her discipline, the support mechanisms are minimal.
“The first thing you have to do when you get to Stanford is take these qualifying exams,” she says. “A lot of people don’t pass the first time around.
“There is not a mechanism to help you get adjusted to the lifestyle at Stanford,” continues Harley. “No one tells you what classes to take. No one tells you how to cope with the results of your qualifying exams, much less the next step to get back on track. And no one tells you about the advisory system.
“It is basically survival of the fittest,” she concludes. “And [the faculty’s] philosophy is, `Well, we do produce some topnotch students, so if it’s not broke, we’re not going to fix it.'”
Gayle Ramdeen, a graduate student in mechanical engineering design, is one of the first two African American women admitted into that division’s doctoral program. She describes the disadvantages of being a trailblazer.
“It does add a bit of responsibility because every time you do something, they model everyone after you,” Ramdeen says. “If you fail, you’re failing every (African American]…. It makes you work that much harder.”
“I had a really hard first year,” admits Trevor Clark, another engineering student. “In my [engineering] department, getting a C is failing. And I got a C every quarter my first year. I think it was because the people in my department…are really, really bright and really interested in this stuff. And I’ve never felt like that, to this day. I’ve passed qualifying exams and I’ve done all of my courses. But still, when I’m walking down the halls, I still ask myself what am I doing here?”
Math student Edray Goins, who came here from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), says that while being a scientist can be a lonely experience for any student, there are special challenges for African American students.
“Being a student of color in the sciences, it is very difficult to bring up any social issues because the other students have never experienced [racism]…and so it is really difficult for me to talk to [them] about just about anything.”
On the subject of whether or not Stanford has achieved true diversity, particularly in the sciences, Goins adds that it is a matter of perspective.
“At my undergraduate institution, the amount of diversity was dismal,” he says. “In the sense of diversity, Stanford probably has come closer than most universities. In terms of being this ideal racist-free, sexist-free environment, I think Stanford has gone further than a lot of — I don’t think I can say most — schools, but it certainly has a longer way to go.”
With respect to further diversifying the graduate student population, Lozano adds that there is much more to be done — not just at Stanford, but everywhere.
“We’ve really been running on a Plessy v. Ferguson, separate but equal model [in higher education] without really calling it that. But that’s really what it is,” Lozano says. “We know that that’s not the best model. But now that we’ve had enough success, we can really move to a Brown v. Board of Education model.
“If you really truly believe in this, you will find a way,” he continues. “Even if you are in the [U.S. District Court] Fifth Circuit, or you’re at UCLA…. And you must be proactive, not reactive.” The ruling in Hopwood v. Texas prohibits institutions in the Fifth Circuit from using race to inform admissions decisions and UCLA is similarly restricted by a Regents’ policy and Proposition 209.
Beating the Blues at Berkeley
Less than a hour northeast of Stanford on a campus perched in the Berkeley Hills, those engaged in the work of diversifying the sciences at the University of California are functioning under the grim shadow of Proposition 209 and the U.C. Regents’ 1996 decision to radically curb affirmative action.
This campus is where the pioneering Dr. Uri Triesman first developed his approach to teaching mathematics to under-represented minority students who were having a hard time succeeding in Berkeley’s math courses. Triesman’s research, emphasizing teamwork, has transformed math curriculum and pedagogy around the world.
Triesman’s doctoral advisor, Dr. Leon Henkin who also is a mathematician, is now a professor emeritus at Berkeley. While, he says, the affirmative action backlash has made an already difficult job even harder, the new challenges it presents might result in even better solutions to the problem.
“This [endeavor of achieving diversity in the sciences] is a complex process,” Dr. Henkin says. “I’ve been volunteering as a teacher’s aid in a local elementary school. I see lots of talent there, but it is hard for the teachers to recognize that talent. I don’t have an answer for how we can improve our schools for all students to let their talent grow. But we must, in our professional societies, understand that there is much more talent out there than we are now finding.”
Dr. Colette Patt, director of physical sciences student diversity programs, administers the Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) graduate program for the physical sciences here. She says projects like AMP are a beacon on a campus where the ending of affirmative action has put an abrupt halt to some initiatives that had only just begun to hear fruit. Even though the AMP program is no longer permitted to serve only under-represented minority students, most of the students participating in the program fall into this category. While she is frustrated by the new restrictions, Part also refuses to surrender.
“The situation is too dire and the needs are too urgent to lose it all,” she says. “I’ve moved from a point of fear and uncertainty to one of determination.”
Berkeley’s production of African Americans in the sciences was meager even 10 before the anti-affirmative action initiatives passed. Patt likens the loss of affirmative action to losing an incomplete set of tools.
“In some ways, affirmative action was never a complete set of tools for achieving diversity. It was never going to [fully] diversify universities,” she says. “We knew it was a step up, but it was never the whole stair case…. The removal of this huge step has forced us to become deep thinkers, and more creative about diversity. Not that this is a good outcome, We have not yet figured out how to do it.”
Soon after the passage of Proposition 209, Dr. William Lester, a theoretical chemist and Berkeley professor, commenced a tour of several historically Black college campuses in an attempt to encourage Students attending those schools to consider pursuing graduate study in his field. He also wanted to encourage them to not be deterred from applying to Berkeley.
Lester says the intent of his tour was to let students on HBCU campuses know that even though Proposition 209 and the Regent’s decision has created new obstacles, the University is still interested in Black students who are pursuing careers in the sciences.
Lester, who describes himself as a long-time beneficiary of affirmative action, is the only Black faculty member in Berkeley’s chemistry department. His career has included work in industry and for the federal government, but he has spent the past eighteen years in academe. In all that time, he has yet to produce another African American doctorate in his field. His first promising Black doctoral student is now in his third year of study.
“He is a double major from Morehouse, Phi Beta Kappa, who has a Bell Labs fellowship. I think he has a very promising career ahead of him,” Lester says.
According to Lester, the same characteristics that allowed him to be a successful basketball player and scholar in college have enabled him to become a good scientist. They will also, he believes, allow him to find ways to continue to create opportunities for Black students, despite the new obstacles.
The Value of Community Support
“There are not many paid employees whose job it is to look after Black students here,” says Raymond Gilstrap, an electrical engineering doctoral Student at Berkeley.
Gilstrap’s goal is to return to academe after graduation. The alumnus of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) says the Support he received from a small number of administrators and faculty here, as well as that extended by African American graduate Students, was an important component of his initial adjustment to the Berkeley Community.
“There is a good sense of community here,” even though it is small, says Gilstrap, who describes the support system as much less structured than the one he was accustomed to at his undergraduate school.
“Having a warm, caring, supportive community of color is important,” agrees Patt, who views it as an essential component if Berkeley is to continue to attract African American scientists.
She also believes attracting such Students in the sciences is germane to the university’s purpose.
“We [public institutions] have a righteous responsibility.” Patt says. “Part of our mission is to serve the public interest. We have an obligation to do this.”
Making Success Contagious
Dr. Anderson Smith, dean at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of science, wishes his graduate program had the same favorable track record that Georgia Tech’s engineering school does in recruiting and graduating Black graduate students. The school of science’s plight resembles that of a teenager struggling to get noticed beneath the shadow of a more accomplished older sibling.
“We do a good job getting a share [of Black grad students], but with the historically Black colleges in Atlanta all clustered right together, there are schools around the Country that do a better jot) at recruiting Morehouse students than Georgia Tech does,” he says. “I want to find out why.”
One strategy for improving its efforts is a handful of new joint research arrangements the school has established with nearby Clark-Atlanta University, Morehouse, Spelman, and Morris Brown colleges.
“The idea is you get people involved in research early [while they’re undergraduates], and they might decide it is too much of a hassle and too much of a step back to start all over somewhere else because they’ve already got the research relationship established here.”
Unlike the engineering school, Georgia Tech’s School of Science isn’t ranked at the top of its discipline. Its divisions are much more specialized toward applied science than many of its peer institutions around the country, Smith says. While these factors may play a role in why there are so few Black graduate students at the school, the main reason is that the school’s departments haven’t been as strategic or aggressive in their approach to recruiting or retaining Black students as the engineering school has.
“We’re doing a lot of things [now] in the Atlanta community and the science community to have the Georgia Tech name mean science as much as engineering,” Smith says.
Nevertheless, with Georgia Tech now adhering to a race-blind admissions policy, it is unclear what impact this will have on Smith’s efforts.
One recruitment program that has, in recent years, begun to help Smith’s school — and primarily benefits the engineering school — is called FOCUS. Founded in 1992, the program’s mission is to demystify the concept of graduate education among under-represented science and engineering undergraduates and provide them with a road map for how to pursue a Ph.D. in these fields. Roughly 180 undergraduates from around the country participate in the three-day program annually, and a good share of them — roughly 10 percent wind up enrolling at Georgia Tech.
FOCUS is paid for, in part, by a grant from the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation.
“This program has increased visibility of graduate education among Black undergraduates, and has changed their mindset,” says program director Robert Haley.
The Might of MIT
The weather in Cambridge, Mass. can be bitter cold in winter. So can the intellectual and social climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to two graduate students.
“When I first came here, I was overwhelmed with grief,” recalls Tina Savage, a second-year graduate student who is pursuing her master’s degree in mechanical engineering. She also is co-chair of the MIT Black graduate student association. “I can remember saying this could never be home. But then, I had to re-evaluate who I was and what I was trying to accomplish.”
Once she did that, Savage began to find other people on campus who felt the same way she did and with whom she could identify.
“One reason why I decided to chair the educational support committee was to try to find other [Black students] to come here,” says JoRuetta Roberson, a first-year, master’s degree candidate in MIT’s mechanical engineering program. “People are scared of the name MIT. You can deal with it, but you have to have a strong mind.”
Roberson emphasizes that while the MIT Black graduate student community provides her with additional support, it is her inner determination to be successful that allows her to persevere.
Despite the persistent chill these students complain about, MIT has been a pioneer among science and engineering institutions in the effort to include more African Americans at the graduate level in SMET disciplines. It now has 276 under-represented minority graduate students out of 6,000 students (4.6 percent).
“It has taken us almost twenty years to get back to where we were in the 1970s, — says Dr. Isaac Colbert, associate dean of graduate student affairs at MIT, about the institute’s production of Black graduates.
Colbert notes that among the institute’s first-year under-represented graduate Students, roughly half of them are now African American. Many of MIT’s master’s degree students are recruited from the Graduate Degrees for Minority Engineering and Science program, known as GEM (see story).
Colbert points out that MIT has produced roughly 11 percent of all practicing Black physicists in the country, and that it is a leader in producing African American doctoral candidates in the field of engineering.
MITs summer research program is a model for introducing under-represented baccalaureate students to research and opportunities in graduate education, and roughly 90 percent of its participants have gone on to some form of graduate education.
Once administrative buy-in and financial support are secured, and a strategy for recruiting and retaining under- represented graduate students is in place, Colbert says, there is still one other critical component that must be present for any program to succeed.
“It requires the will of the faculty to make a difference.”
RELATED ARTICLE: How Large is the Pool?
Those who recruit African Americans into math-based disciplines often complain that the “eligible” pool is too small.
Eligibility criteria vary from program to program, and many factors can influence admissions decisions. However, applicants generally present grade point averages (GPAs) of at least 3.0 and cumulative Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores of 1000 or better. Most graduate schools require the submission of GRE scores as a part of the admission application.
In 1993, according to a sample study conducted by the Frederick D. Patterson Institute of data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, the percentage of African American undergraduates who completed their baccalaureate degrees with a GPA of 3.0 or better was roughly 46 percent. This compares to 72 percent of Whites and 70 percent of all bachelor’s degree recipients.
Since 77,872 African American students graduated with bachelor’s degrees in 1993, 46 percent would constitute approximately 36,000 students. The number of African Americans who took the GRE in 1995 was 22,667, representing 8 percent of all examinees. The mean scores among these students was 389 on the verbal section, 409 on the quantitative section, and 423 on the analytical section. (For further detail see attached chart.)
It should be noted that more than twice as many African American women took the exam as African American men, but the mean score was higher for men in each section.
Data from the National Science Foundation show that in 1993, African Americans represented roughly 5 percent of the overall science and engineering graduate student population, including the social sciences. Black students majoring in the social sciences constituted roughly 37 percent of these. Those pursuing science and engineering degrees outside of the social sciences, therefore, amounted to slightly more than 10.000 students, including all years of study.
GRE General Test Score Information byEthnic Group and Sex: 1995-96 GRE General Test Score Information Examiners VerbalGroup Number Percent(*) Mean SD(**)American Indian 1,731 1 461 105 Men 683 <1 475 108 Women 1,048 <1 452 102Asian/Pacific 12,368 4 489 115 Men 5,030 2 494 119 Women 7,338 3 486 112Black/African 22,667 8 389 93 Men 6,487 2 399 99 Women 16,180 6 385 91Mexican American 5,582 2 438 99 Men 2,120 1 450 102 Women 3,462 1 430 96Puerto Rican 2,775 1 407 101 Men 1,075 <1 416 102 Women 1,699 1 401 100Other Hispanic 5,361 2 455 105 Men 1,928 1 474 110 Women 3,433 1 444 100White 220,055 79 496 104 Men 80,784 29 513 106 Women 139,271 50 486 101Other 6,642 2 514 120 Men 3,049 1 533 117 Women 3,593 1 497 120Total 277,181 100 484 109 Men 101,157 37 502 111 Women 176,024 64 474 106 GRE General Test Score Information Quantitative AnalyticalGroup Mean SD Mean SDAmerican Indian 490 129 516 129 Men 533 135 532 133 Women 463 117 506 126Asian/Pacific 597 124 558 129 Men 635 118 567 133 Women 570 121 552 125Black/African 409 116 423 115 Men 441 129 426 121 Women 397 107 422 112Mexican American 470 124 481 122 Men 512 129 493 127 Women 443 112 474 118Puerto Rican 465 125 457 120 Men 509 131 468 122 Women 437 112 450 118Other Hispanic 491 126 500 127 Men 538 131 518 130 Women 465 116 492 124White 538 123 564 119 Men 585 124 578 122 Women 511 115 557 117Other 543 132 557 134 Men 583 128 573 130 Women 509 126 543 135Total 527 129 548 127 Men 574 130 563 130 Women 500 121 540 125
Note: A total of 280,446 U.S. citizens took the GRE General Test in 1995-96 and 99 percent responded to questions in this table.
(*) Percentages in this table are based on the column total and are rounded to the nearest integer.
(**) Indicates Standard Deviation
Source: Educational Testing Service
RELATED ARTICLE: Changes to MESA and Meyerhoff programs
The affirmative action backlash that is sweeping the country has resulted in changes to two of the nation’s most renowned programs aimed at boosting the competitiveness of under-represented students in math-based disciplines. Both the California MESA program, based in Oakland, and the Meyerhoff scholars program, based at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, are now open to students of all races.
For more than a quarter century, MESA — an acronym for Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement — has provided an array of programs aimed at strengthening the science and math skills of under-represented students at the pre-college and undergraduate level. By offering them access to educational enrichment programs, research opportunities, tutoring, internships, mentors, and academic career counseling, it has been a critical feeder of students into all of the University of California (UC) system campuses.
Some MESA students go on to attend institutions outside of the UC system nationwide, and many who complete baccalaureate study are believed to go on to pursue graduate degrees — although the program does not keep precise data on this segment of its graduates. MESA does know, however, that roughly 70 percent of its graduates pursue B.S. degrees in math-based fields.
“We’ve spent so Much time retooling to the new [Proposition 209] environment, — says director Michael Aldaco. “We knew we couldn’t continue to focus on only [Linder-represented minorities]. We now serve educationally disadvantaged students with a focus on students who suffer from low rates of UC eligibility, irrespective of race or gender.”
So far, most of the students participating in the program continue to be under-represented minorities — with African Americans comprising 28 percent of MESA participants.
Despite these changes Aldaco says MESA is stronger than ever.
The Meyerhoff Scholars program, founded in 1989 at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC), was originally designed to serve African American undergraduates. Its goal, until recently, was to interest Black Students in pursuing Ph.D.s in the sciences, and support them toward attaining this goal through a variety of support programs.
Under the new policy, the program is now open to Students of all racial groups. As a consequence, it has gone from serving a 100-percent African American student clientele to an 80-percent African American clientele. Each year, Meyerhoff sends roughly forty to fifty of its graduates to graduate degree programs across the country.
Program co-founder Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski altered the program as part of a strategic move designed to guard it from attacks by affirmative action critics.
Meyerhoff scholars Cylburn “Cyl” Soden and Lea Hairston have mixed reactions to what the new policy means.
“Why are we moving backwards?” asks Hairston, a recent graduate who is now pursuing her doctoral degree on the UMBC campus. “I disagree 100 percent with [the administration’s decision] to integrate the program. I think it fundamentally goes against what the program was created for.”
“I wouldn’t say that opening up the program takes away its entire purpose,” says Soden, a junior majoring in biochemistry. “But I would say it definitely took away [valuable Afrocentric elements] from the program.”
RELATED ARTICLE: Faculty Disappointments
In his more than twenty-five years as an applied physics professor at Stanford University, Dr. Arthur Walker says one of his greatest career frustrations is that he has yet to produce an African American doctoral physicist in his area of specialization.
He explains that while Stanford has had more success producing Black physicists than many of its peer institutions, and the university’s administration has been very amenable to the cause, the numbers of African American graduate students in his field has actually declined. This, he adds, ultimately has a negative affect on faculty recruitment as well.
“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.”
COPYRIGHT 1998 Cox, Matthews & Associates
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
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