Describing the past decade’s growth of African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans in the engineering profession as “marginal at best,” diversity efforts have to increasingly target under-represented K-12 students, according to the president and CEO of the National Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME).
“Each of those groups has shown marginal increases in the baccalaureate degree production in engineering and in the engineering work force, but the reality is, there is a huge problem with proportionality,” Dr. Irving Pressley McPhail said.
The percentage of engineers from each minority group is still far below each group’s percentage in the overall population, he said, and it’s important to “create an engineering work force that looks like America.”
NACME has a 35-year history of promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the college level, but recruitment of future engineers must start at the K-12 level, he told Diverse in an interview during which he discussed his vision for the organization.
“We have to start much younger with young people in order to really capture their interest,” he said. “At the middle school level, focusing on parents (and) counselors (to spread) engineering awareness. We design materials that actually inform young people about engineering as a career, the academic requirements to become an engineer, (and) the excitement of discovery and innovation.”
One of McPhail’s main goals will be to increase NACME influence at the state level to help individual states to develop K-12 STEM initiatives. One middle school initiative by NACME is in the Milwaukee public schools, which has a diverse, urban population of largely African-American and Latino students. NACME has partnered with Project Lead the Way in Milwaukee to provide educational and motivational materials, student scholarship support, and professional development funds for science and math teachers to develop extracurricular STEM activities.
At the college level, NACME will continue to provide scholarships to under-represented students, McPhail explained.
