Of the roughly 1.5 million engineering jobs held by engineers in the United States in the year 2002, Black males accounted for approximately 50,000 of those engineering jobs. In other words, one out of every thirty engineers (3%) working in America was a Black male. Furthermore, current research conducted on the engineering profession demonstrates that individuals who aspire for careers associated with high monetary returns, prestige, and job opportunities generally finds it in the field of engineering. Therefore, the problem is that it is possible that the present work environment hinders positive outcomes for Black males' career growth, development, and promotion in the profession of engineering.
How can academic institutions, corporations, and policymakers foster African American participation and advancement in engineering? For much of America’s history, African Americans were discouraged or aggressively prevented from becoming scientists and engineers. Those who did enter STEM fields found that their inventions and discoveries were often neither recognized nor valued. Even today, particularly in the field of engineering, the participation of African American men and women is shockingly low, and some evidence indicates that the situation might be getting worse. In Changing the Face of Engineering, twenty-four eminent scholars address the underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering from a wide variety of disciplinary and professional perspectives while proposing workable classroom solutions and public policy initiatives. They combine robust statistical analyses with personal narratives of African American engineers and STEM instructors who, by taking evidenced-based approaches, have found success in graduating African American engineers. Changing the Face of Engineering argues that the continued underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering impairs the ability of the United States to compete successfully in the global marketplace. This volume will be of interest to STEM scholars and students, as well as policymakers, corporations, and higher education institutions.
Despite the changing demographics of the nation and a growing appreciation for diversity and inclusion as drivers of excellence in science, engineering, and medicine, Black Americans are severely underrepresented in these fields. Racism and bias are significant reasons for this disparity, with detrimental implications on individuals, health care organizations, and the nation as a whole. The Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine was launched at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2019 to identify key levers, drivers, and disruptors in government, industry, health care, and higher education where actions can have the most impact on increasing the participation of Black men and Black women in science, medicine, and engineering. On April 16, 2020, the Roundtable convened a workshop to explore the context for their work; to surface key issues and questions that the Roundtable should address in its initial phase; and to reach key stakeholders and constituents. This proceedings provides a record of the workshop.
An Open Synopsis on CANT CULTURE. MALADAPTIVE COPING + INTERNALIZED STIGMA = CANT CULTURE CANT CULTURE was created by ideas. It was built around the collective Black male's idea that, "the world is unfair to us", "we have no control over our futures", and "therefore we have little worth". This idea was built into the Black male psyche via the social mechanisms of American Racism, National Stigma, and Systemic Discrimination. MALADAPTIVE COPING The CANT CULTURE ideology expresses itself through goal avoidance, withdrawal, self-sabotage, minimal long-term planning, and the avoidance of responsibility. These counter-productive coping behaviors serve the purpose of COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTION to an unfair and threatening social environment. These collective maladaptive coping behaviors serve the purpose of minimizing the fear, stress, sadness, anger, and frustration connected to the frequent and intense experiencing of social stigma and marginalization. Race-related stress, fear, frustration, sadness, and anger are minimized through CANT CULTURE'S creation of a set of norms, customs, values, and beliefs that are different from those of the discriminating mainstream group. Black males who are psychologically immersed in the beliefs, norms, customs, and expressions of CANT CULTURE are role models for each other as they inform and inspire one another with distorted messages, failure-laced expectations, and dysfunctional forms of self-expression. Guided by the beliefs, expectations, and norms of CANT CULTURE, young Black males are eventually driven to obtain identities that are characterized by socially counter-productive forms of expression. INTERNALIZED STIGMA When a Black male internalizes stigma, he downloads a combination of psychological tendencies and personality traits that will predispose him to social failure. These psychological tendencies and personality traits (i.e. the fear of failure, anticipated race-related catastrophe, chronic race-related pessimism, recurring sense of race-related detachment from success, etc.) combine with maladaptive coping strategies (i.e. self-sabotage, avoidance, withdrawal, escapism, etc.) to compel Black males to pursue socially inappropriate goals (misguided motivations) that are ineffective as it pertains to acquiring the American Dream. This leads to a developing Black boy investing his mental and emotional energy on the standards, goals, aspirations, and pursuits of a counterculture that psychologically embraces failure and underachievement. This state of existence negatively influences general decision-making, long-term planning, impulse control, emotion regulation, etc. ESCAPING CANT CULTURE The purpose of this book is to re-socialize Black males into a classification of American citizen that is capable of success and expected to succeed. The identity and image of these prototypical Black males will be linked to a set of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that will reverse the trend of negative life outcomes Black males characteristically encounter. Andre Fields, Ph.D.
It is not an accident that American engineering is so disproportionately male and white; it took and takes work to create and sustain this situation. Engineering Manhood: Race and the Antebellum Virginia Military Institute examines the process by which engineers of the antebellum Virginia Military Institute cultivated whiteness, manhood, and other intersecting identities as essential to an engineering professional identity. VMI opened in 1839 to provide one of the earliest and most thorough engineering educations available in antebellum America. The officers of the school saw engineering work as intimately linked to being a particular type of person, one that excluded women or black men. This particular white manhood they crafted drew upon a growing middle-class culture. These precedents impacted engineering education broadly in this country and we continue to see their legacy today.
In order for the United States to maintain the global leadership and competitiveness in science and technology that are critical to achieving national goals, we must invest in research, encourage innovation, and grow a strong and talented science and technology workforce. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation explores the role of diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce and its value in keeping America innovative and competitive. According to the book, the U.S. labor market is projected to grow faster in science and engineering than in any other sector in the coming years, making minority participation in STEM education at all levels a national priority. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation analyzes the rate of change and the challenges the nation currently faces in developing a strong and diverse workforce. Although minorities are the fastest growing segment of the population, they are underrepresented in the fields of science and engineering. Historically, there has been a strong connection between increasing educational attainment in the United States and the growth in and global leadership of the economy. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation suggests that the federal government, industry, and post-secondary institutions work collaboratively with K-12 schools and school systems to increase minority access to and demand for post-secondary STEM education and technical training. The book also identifies best practices and offers a comprehensive road map for increasing involvement of underrepresented minorities and improving the quality of their education. It offers recommendations that focus on academic and social support, institutional roles, teacher preparation, affordability and program development.
This report contains fifteen presentations from a workshop on best practices in managing diversity, hosted by the NAE Committee on Diversity in the Engineering Workforce on October 29-30, 2001. NAE (National Academy of Engineering) president William Wulf, IBM vice-president Nicholas Donofrio, and Ford vice-president James Padilla address the business case for diversity, and representatives of leading engineering employers discuss how to increase the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering careers. Other speakers focus on mentoring, globalization, affirmative action backlash, and dealing with lawsuits. Corporate engineering and human resources managers attended the workshop and discussed diversity issues faced by corporations that employ engineers. Summaries of the discussions are also included in the report.
College student retention continues to be a top priority among colleges, universities, educators, federal and state legislatures, parents and students. While access to higher education is virtually universally available, many students who start in a higher education program do not complete the program or achieve their academic and personal goals. In spite of the programs and services colleges and universities have devoted to this issue, student retention and graduation rates have not improved considerably over time. College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success, Third Edition offers a solution to this vexing problem. It provides background information about college student retention issues and offers the educational community pertinent information to help all types of students succeed. The book lays out the financial implications and trends of retention. Current theories of retention, retention of online students, and retention in community colleges are also thoroughly discussed. Completely new to this edition are chapters that examine retention of minority and international students. Additionally, a formula for student success is provided which if colleges and universities implement student academic and personal goals may be attained.
