They are useless, however, if ignored by agency program officers and reviewers alike. If funding decisions don t support our research and education missions together, they become competing goods. Put another way, a Federal grant is a policy tool either supporting the system as it is, or stimulating change. At NSF, on paper, they already are. That s not enough.
Federal programs targeted to particular groups is no longer a viable policy strategy.
Affirmative action as we know it is dead. It is consortial, collaborative, and if it can be scaled up and adapted to other academic settings, could be a substantial contributor to the pool of professionals that this nation needs. According to the analysis by my friend, Michael Teitelbaum of the Sloan Foundation, science as a career does not compare favorably on a host of factors including opportunity costs in length of preparation, starting salary, and benefits with medicine, law, engineering, or business. Again, careers should be part of life, not instead of life. The Clinton-Gore blueprint, Science in the National Interest, promised such a policy in 1994.