Design partnerships of universities, state higher education agencies, corporations and foundations with the goal of increasing the number of African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics completing doctoral degrees in science, engineering and technology disciplines and entering careers as college faculty. At the rank of full professor, African Americans comprise 3 percent of the total number, Hispanics 1.5 percent, and Native Americans 0.2 percent. The number of minority doctoral recipients available to fill vacancies in the faculty remains dishearteningly small, especially in the sciences. For example, the combined number of doctorates in the biological sciences awarded to Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans in 1997 was only 4.3 percent of the total number of doctorates awarded that year.
Numbers are even smaller in fields of engineering and the physical sciences.
Quite apart from issues of equity and fairness, the underrepresentation of minority faculty means that higher education does not benefit from contributions to teaching, research and scholarship by persons of color. It means that American college graduates, whether or not they are members of minority groups, miss out on perspectives that would better prepare them to work in racially diverse environments in this country and around the world. As society, and student populations, become even more diverse, the lack of minority faculty in the sciences becomes an even greater problem. Past attempts to diversify the faculty in the sciences have relied on the provision of fellowships to minority scholars in an effort to address their financial needs, without attending to the structures, practices, and customs in graduate education that systematically undermine minority student success. A national strategy that engages federal and state policymakers, corporate and foundation resources, and university administrators and faculty in a common effort, with clearly defined objectives and outcomes, is needed to address this critical societal need.