From: julie@amazon.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Stigma was Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Date: 15 Sep 92 17:46:56 GMT
	<BuLCMD.1GE@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> <14SEP199221034456@jetson.uh.edu>
Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry,
	Columbia University

In article <14SEP199221034456@jetson.uh.edu> schieber@jetson.uh.edu (Schieber, Jay D.) writes:

   In article <BuLCMD.1GE@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca>, drraymon@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (Darrell Raymond) writes...

   >     Proposal #1: let's evaluate current programs and find out what
   >  		  causes beneficial effects [... sorry --- deleted a bit
by mistake]
[...]
   >     Proposal #2: overhauling the public school system will have ten
   >                  times the effect of overhauling the universities. 

   I agree only partially here.  I think that universities can go a long
   way to advancing the awareness of students that pass through their
   doors.  You are right in that many do not gain much, but there are 
   certainly many who do.[...]

	Yes, and remember that while part of the problem is that women/
minorities/whatever are discouraged or underprepared by the schools,
another problem is that students can go through so many years of school
with so few challenges to their prejudices.  There are a lot of sexist
and racist people out there, many of them quite decent people overall,
just people whose assumptions have never been challenged sufficiently to
make them think.  I don't want to tell people how to think on social
issues like AA, for instance, in the schools, but surely it couldn't
hurt to stress some *facts* (like that women and minorities *do* do
science and engineering, and that discrimination has often stopped or
slowed them through history).  

   A question arises for me, however.  Will your second point be
   sufficient?  What if, say Native American Indians are told repeatedly
   that they can be whatever they want, but they get to the university
   and see only white males of european descent, say.  Would that be
   too powerful of a message that would overcome the mere words of grade
   and high schools?  Also, would it be enough to counterbalance the
   many current faculty voices who reject many qualified "minorities"
   out of hand?

	These are good points.  I think that it's hard to tell how much 
effect changing the public school system would have compared to the
effect of changing the universities (although maybe the studies advocated
in Proposal 1 would help!).  It is very true that many people are steered
away from fields where their gender/race/economic class/whatever is
underrepresented, when they are too young to catch on to how these
choices will affect their lives.  However, I know that for women in
science, at least, the attrition rates are also significantly higher 
for women than for men in grad school (Science vol 241, p. 1740,
9/30/88) in science and engineering.  From my personal observations,
this comes as no surprise.  This seems like a tremendous waste for
society, if you believe that having more women in high positions in
science and engineering is a Good Thing.  Affirmative action becomes
almost a moot point.  (A friend of mine applied for an assistant prof.
position in physical chemistry at a large Western state university
last year.  Out of 85 applicants, none were female.  Is this really
natural??)  Basically, if you change the upper levels of education, you
can retain some of those people who *almost* made it, with only a few
years worth of effort for each person, rather than a lifetime.  Once those 
people stick around, you can work on the next level down (which will 
be easier with a few more role models), and so on.  Of course, I'd prefer
that we work on all levels at once, but I just wanted to point out that
a little effort might go a long way in the cases of people who have made
it most of the way through.  Define "effort" however you think appropriate,
from aggressive AA tactics to simply having more faculty-student contact
so the student gets some feedback more often.  I've heard a lot of stories,
some probably untrue but some definitely true, about faculty members at
various places who are prejudiced against an entire gender or race.  It
sure wouldn't hurt to be told more often that other faculty members disagree
with them, for another example.  (We can't read people's minds...)  
  
   I think that your suggestions are good ones, and would have a
   wonderful synergistic effect with AA.  

Ditto.

   One piece of evidence that the perception of 
   real opportunity has a tremendous difference is given by the following
   anecdotal occurrence:  

The man in question, Eugene Lang, was an alumnus of Swarthmore College
(and Chairman of the Board of Managers or something there, in the '80s)
where I went to school and worked in the public relations office, so
I actually know this story pretty thoroughly, and have taken the liberty
of making a few corrections...

   An alumnus of a very poor NYC public school
   became very wealthy by running his own business.  The principal of the
   high school 

It was actually an elementary school, and the occasion was a speech for
the students' graduation from 6th grade.

   asked him to come visit the school and tell the students
   that they could make it if they tried.  He decided to go one better,

He says this was a spur-of-the-moment decision, as he thought about his
prepared you-can-make-it speech and realized how unlikely that was...

   and offered to pay the tuition of any student who graduated in that
   class and got accepted at a university.  Since no more than one or
   two students from any graduating class had ever gone to university,
   he expected to pay for only three or four, at most.  It ends up
   that he his expectation were correct, because the bulk of the
   class got scholarships to their universities.  

In fact, I think he did realize that many of them were likely to get
need-based scholarships, but that they were unlikely to realize that
or feel they could count on it.  With his guarantee, their perspective
changed (and their parents' perspective -- I think he said something
about all the moms running up and crying and screaming and hugging him
after he made his announcement at the elementary school graduation...)  

   I read this in
   the NYT several years ago, but have not read any followups on
   how well that class did in university.

Me neither, but the article a few years ago indicated that the graduation
rates for the class were WAY higher than usual for that school's students,
as was the percentage of students going to college.

However, I want to make an important point, which actually strengthens
Darrell's argument that focusing on the public schools could make a big
difference (well, *I* think it strengthens it).  Eugene Lang's efforts
went a lot further than this description.  He set up a foundation to
help them out in school.  He had tutors helping them learn, and I think
he provided extracurricular things for them to do as well.  These kids
had opportunities offered to them that they wouldn't have had in their
"normal" course through school.  Nobody *made* them do this stuff; they
did it because they had a choice they wouldn't have had if it weren't
for Lang.  Presumably they had similar families to other kids that had
gone through their elementary school in the previous few years.  Makes
you wonder what could happen if all kids like them had similar chances.
And again, remember, most of these kids did not, in the end, need to
take advantage of his offer to pay their college tuition.

By the way, other individuals and businesses also set up similar programs
in other cities.  Lang started a foundation called the I Have A Dream
foundation; I believe its purpose is to offer advice and help guide other
people/companies who want to run the same type of program.  Really cool
stuff. 

   At any rate, it may be possible to see if individuals of underrepresented
   groups who went to progressive schools faired better than the average
   members of that group.  There may be a statistically large enough sample.

That would be interesting to know.  

   > 
   >-Darrell.
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers