From: glovercj@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Repost of Minorities in Science
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:34:31 GMT
Organization: Drexel University

>>    Walter Massey, Afro American, Director, National Science Foundation:
>>    "Coursework is viewed by many faculty as a way to separate the 'men'
>>    from the 'boys.' Unfortunately, these curses also tend to separate
>>    the men from the women -- and the white men from just about everyone
>>    else." -pg. 1178-1179, Science, Nov. 13, 1992.
>>
>>    My question for readers is: How can we pare down the number of students
>>    that enter a scientific field without  racial or sexual bias?

I think African-Americans have been trained subconsciously and consciously that
they are unable to be Engineers and Scientists. They've been trained that
Business is the only method to becoming succesfull in college.  They often fear
Engineering and Science because of what takes place in High School and the
reality that being a Black Engineer or Scientists is the same as a being a
"minority" at an all white school. As to the answer of how to avoid this, I
would say parents, teachers, and mentors, have to instill that in the beginning
that Africans created mathematics from which all of todays mathematics come
from. I also believe that individuals that have accelled in these fields have
to give back and show that they've made it. Concrete confidence building
factors are what they need. They need support.  I myself am a 3rd year
Electrical/Computer Engineering student at a predominately white institution
and I often find that there are other African-Americans who do not want to work
collectively to get our degrees, while the Caucasians, Asians, Indians, and
just about everyone else does. 

>>    Wilford Easter, exec. dir. of MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science
>>    Achievement program): "Too often minority kids go to an institution and
>>    people expect them to fail. They take on a kind of syndrome of the
>>    terminally ill, where they stop really caring, because they know sooner
>>    or later the ax will fall on them."
>>
>>                               and
>>
>>    Uri Treisman, a mathematician at the University of Texas, Austin, who
>>    recently was awarded a MacArthur "genius grant" for his pioneering
>>    work teaching college students mathematics in California and Texas,
>>    reacting to the belief that strong students ("A" students) will
>>    succeed in college regardless of race: "In fact, national data show
>>    that's false. If you control for socioeconomic background and class rank
>>    in high school, black kids still do less well than nonminoritites. These
>>    are measures of institutional inhospitality."
>>
>>    This means that, on average, if you take a white kid and a black
>>    kid whose parents make the same amount of money and who finished
>>    with the same high school rank the white kid is MORE likely to
>>    get an undergraduate degree in science than a black kid at the
>>    same university, regardless of what grades these kids made in high
>>    school.
Unfortunately, I lived with the reality of this fact. I went to one of the best
High Schools in Philadelphia for Engineering & Science and so did many of my
peers, and now most of them have left Drexel. Why? Sometimes, out of lack of
money, but moreso out of inablity to succeed. It was not because they didn't
want to, but because they just could not.

>>    The question then is how can we get more minority students in
>>    the sciences? Also one of the articles made the point that the
>>    single point of greatest loss is the first year of college. So,
>>    how can we help those students stick it out?

How do we get more minority students interested in science? First, we have to
prepare them better. Secondly, successful individuals must come back and
provide some inkling of what it's like to survive and succeed in Engineering.
And Lastly, African-Americans have to understand and use collective economics.

>>    Finally, I am specifically interested in the role of mentors in
>>    the success of students, especially minorities. Also did a mentor play
>>    any role in your college career?
>>
>> Peace, but not without justice,
>>
>> Zip
No, I had no mentor, but wish I did, then maybe I'd have someone to look up to.
But infortunately, the only person I looked up to was myself. After getting to
college one of the only things that my college education had going for me was
myself and my involvement in N.S.B.E.(National Society of Black Engineers)

                        Chad J Glover
           glovercj@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu      
       Drexel University Software Testing Lab
   If a man hasn't found something he will die for, he
                        isn't fit to live. --MLK