From: slzm9@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Minorities in Science
Date: 29 Dec 92 18:34:20 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

   I would like to call attention to a recent issue of the journal Science.
On November 13th, 1992 Science published a special feature on "Minorities
in Science." In 10 articles the following topics are reviewed: 1) An over-
view of the situation with identification of the "Pipeline Problem" (the
Pipeline Problem is a euphemism for the proportionately larger loss of
minority students compared to white students at every step along the
route from high school to undergraduate degree to science researcher).
2) Why programs begun in the late 60's and early 70's have mostly failed.
3) Profiling a couple of programs that have worked and have data to 
prove it. 4) The special problems in the field of math. 5) Profiles
of successful minority scientists including a Hopi Indian that is
now an associate professor of genetics at Northern Arizona University;
the first Asian American to be president of any national scientific
society (Amer. Soc. of Microbiologists) and now Dean of Science at
New York University - Alice Huang; and the African American that holds 
perhaps the most important position in science in the United States -
Director of the National Science Foundation: Walter Massey. 6) How
black colleges have cultivated black scientists and are the principle
producer of graduating blacks with undergraduate degrees in science.
7) Summarizes a large amount of data on the problem and 8) The
feature summarizes a large number of resources including a selected
list of organizations working on the problem.

   If you are truly interested in recruitment of minorities into
science, engineering and technology this is an essential source.


Let me report a few of the findings published here to stimulate
discussion on the topic:


pg. 1178-9: "Coursework is viewed by many faculty as a way to separate the
"men" from the "boys." Unfortunately, these courses also tend to separate
the men from the women--and the white men from just about everyone else."
- Walter Massey, Director, National Science Foundation

My question for readers is: How can we pare down the number of students
that enter a scientific field without  racial or sexual bias? We must
reduce the number because while 8,000 freshmen may enter college to
major in biochemistry only 800 jobs in biochemistry and related fields
will open the year they graduate. Also at a particular university 1200
undergraduates may enter in a particular degree program while the 
university only has enough resources to accomodate 120 seniors. Even if 
you, the reader, argue that more resources must be made available
it can be reasonably argued that society does not need 8,000 biochemists
a year. So answer the question even if you must put in the caveat that
we need more resources to be made available.

pg. 1194: Wilfred Easter, exec. dir. of MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, 
Science Achievement prgogram): "Too often minority kids go to an [undergrad]
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." 
   This is true at every stage of the pipeline--and for "A" students
as well as marginal achievers... "There is a belief that kids who are
strong will make it anyway," says 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. "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 nonminorities. 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.
Sorry to restate the text but I thought they did a pretty
poor job of saying there is still racial discrimination
against minority students in science at undergraduate institutions. 
Sure we knew this anyway but the data exists to back it up. Anybody
that argues this point with you, you can refer to this page in the
journal Science and tell them to shut up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what do you think? What are the next appropriate steps?
Can some out there offer their own personal stories on how
they came to get degree(s) in science? I am really interested in
the role of mentors, when were they most important if at all;
when did you choose science as a degree option and if you did
as a career choice?
How many of you got degrees in science and then left the field?
How many of you felt discriminated against because of your race
as an undergrad?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peace, but not without justice,

Zip

 
Xref: sparky soc.culture.african.american:13322 alt.discrimination:5472