Facing the problem

ASEE Prism, Oct 2002 by Mannix, Margaret

With no critical mass of role models, though, that's a tough task. "There are no mentors; there is no encouragement," says Cathy Trower, principal investigator of the Study of New Scholars at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. And "engineering is particularly non-nurturing." Thankfully, a number of outside organizations have stepped in to fill the void. "We want to basically manage the pipeline from pre-college, undergraduate, graduate, and then moving into faculty," says Delano White, national chairman of the National Society of Black Engineers. "Individuals that have already traveled that journey can help others to take that same journey," says White. Other groups bent on erasing the Ph.D. deficit include the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees in Engineering and Science and the Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network.

But some in academia believe colleges of engineering need a major overhaul if they are ever to attract diverse faculty "There is still the culture of `there is only one right way to get research, only one right way to get tenure, only one right way to move up,"' says Trower. "It's an isolated discipline, totally focused on your research, that doesn't leave much room for a life."

That can be a big minus. Kay C. Dee, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tulane University, can attest to that. Dee tells of two women Ph.D. students who entered the program with the intention of becoming faculty members. "They told me this was their calling," says Dee. Alas, both have recently decided against academia. Why did they change their minds? One "was tired of seeing people get reamed," says Dee, the other "wants to have a life."

While sad, Dee says both are fair critiques. "During the semester, I work seven days a week," says Dee. "That's the culture." And the students see that. "I was supposed to be a good role model and bring people to academia," says Dee. "They pretty much looked at my life and said `no thanks."'

Of course, that commitment comes much easier if it starts at the top. "We have six underrepresented minorities," says Tapia. "That's not by accident. That's because the president is sensitive, the provost is sensitive, and the dean is sensitive." If academic leaders are up to the task, the rest comes naturally. Denton says that means going beyond hiring two junior women each year. Give more women and minorities endowed chairs. "Senior people are the ones who are in a position to affect the change. Import the leadership you need to get the job done," says Denton, who can't stress enough the importance of deans and department chairs taking on personal responsibility for the search process. "There is a fine line here. This is not micro-managing. I work closely with them [the search committee] to ensure they have the support to be successful."

One of the most important jobs of the leadership is to track progress. "It's relatively easy to find out the availability of minorities in different disciplines," says Janie Fouke, dean of the College of Engineering at Michigan State University. "You look at Ph.D. graduates last year." If eight percent were, say, African-Americans, and there are fewer than eight percent in the applicant pool, "I want to know why," says Fouke. Of course, the number of doctoral graduates dwarfs the number who will choose the academic route. But it's a benchmark, says Fouke. "If you don't measure it, if you don't track it, how are you going to change? How are you going to know that you changed?"