Educator warns of a 'chilling' environment facing minority students

By David Brand

A leading black educator gave a dispiriting vision of future minority student enrollments in the nation's colleges and universities at a Cornell College of Engineering lecture Oct. 4. "We measure quality by the numbers of students we deny admittance to," he said. "No other industry in America bases its prestige on such a negative indicator. It's so unfortunate that education is playing that role."

John Brooks Slaughter, right, president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, speaks with senior biological and environmental engineering major Katy Pan during a reception Oct. 4 in the McManus Lounge of Hollister Hall. Slaughter lectured earlier to engineering students in Olin Hall. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

Speaking to an audience of about 35 people in 155 Olin Hall, John Brooks Slaughter, a former director of the National Science Foundation who is now the president and chief executive of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), decried what he called "a highly competitive SAT- and GPA-driven admission environment." SAT scores alone, he said, "have become the indicator of excellence in our society. We need to tell U.S. News & World Report to hang it up."

Partly because of this admission environment, even with demographics that show larger numbers of minorities, particularly blacks and Hispanics, within the college-age cohort, Slaughter said, "there is no guarantee that many of our colleges and universities will reflect the presence of these students in their student populations." He also blamed the high price of attendance at college and the correspondingly low levels of financial aid. And he warned that government-imposed abolition of affirmative action "removes important motivating reasons for admission officers to produce diverse entering classes each fall."

Also at fault, said Slaughter, a former chancellor of the University of Maryland, is inadequate science and math education in many American elementary and secondary schools. "The statistic I think that is the most chilling is the fact that of all kids, only 16 percent graduate from high school with the requisite background to study engineering in the nation's colleges and universities. And for minority kids, the figure is only 6 percent."

Furthermore, he said, many young people who have the potential "do not have available to them advanced placement courses in math and science that they need to get into a place like Cornell. This is a serious barrier."

"What can be done?" Slaughter asked. First, he said, universities must take greater responsibility for what is happening in elementary and secondary schools, principally in the preparation of teachers. "The biggest problem we face is that far too many young people, minority kids more than any others, find themselves in the presence of teachers who are unprepared to teach them the math and science they need if they are going to pursue careers in science and technology." He claimed that 30 percent to 50 percent of teachers in K through 9 who are teaching math and science lack adequate preparation for these subjects.

Universities, from the highest levels, he said, also need to express their commitment to public education and "to help faculty members sense there are incentives and rewards to committing themselves to public schools."

In answer to a question, Slaughter also noted the small numbers of minority faculty in the nation's leading colleges and universities. (Cornell's College of Engineering, according to a college official, has fewer than 10 tenured or tenure-track faculty who are black, Hispanic or American-Indian.) "One of biggest problems, very frankly, is that most institutions that are searching for minority faculty don't know the right places to look," said Slaughter. He advised recruiters to look in the pages of publications such as Black Issues In Higher Education and to interact more with historically black colleges and universities. "Simply waiting for employment applications to come in over the transom won't work. You have to take more aggressive, proactive steps," he said.

Slaughter's visit was sponsored by the Cornell engineering college's Minority and Women's Programs in Engineering (MWPE) as part of its Culture and Diversity Lecture Series. The purpose of the program is to bring to campus nationally recognized leaders in engineering ethics and equity.

"Diversity and equity are not special programs," said Krishna S. Athreya, director of MWPE. "They are values that must be embraced by the whole community. This is the purpose of this speaker series -- to challenge each of us to be active stewards of equity in our own communities," she said.

NACME provides services to educators and students at U.S. engineering institutions to assist in enrolling and graduating larger numbers of minority students.