This document has been archived. Title : NSF 95-3 - Third National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific & Technological Workforce Type : Report NSF Org: EHR Date : March 27, 1995 File : nsf953a THIRD NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIVERSITY IN THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL WORKFORCE September 29-October 1, 1994 Omni Shoreham Hotel Washington, D.C. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human Resources National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Neal Lane Director National Science Foundation Luther S. Williams Assistant Director Directorate for Education and Human Resources National Science Foundation Bruce M. Alberts President National Academy of Sciences Eugene H. Cota-Robles Consultant to the Director National Science Foundation Marvin Druger President National Science Teachers Association Virginia R. Ferris Executive Committee Phi Beta Kappa and Professor of Entomology Purdue University Diana Garcia Prichard Research Scientist Eastman Kodak Company Peter H. Gerber Director, Education Programs MacArthur Foundation John H. Gibbons Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy Fredrick A. Humphries President Florida A&M University J. Robert Kerrey United States Senator Shirley M. Malcom National Science Board Member and Head, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs American Association for the Advancement of Science Barbara A. Mikulski United States Senator Jaime Oaxaca National Science Board Member and Vice Chairman Coronado Communications Corporation Clifton A. Poodry Director MORE Programs Branch National Institute of General Medical Sciences National Institutes of Health James L. Powell National Science Board Member and President and CEO Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Anne S. Pruitt National Science Foundation Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering and Dean In Residence Council of Graduate Schools Richard W. Riley Secretary U.S. Department of Education John Ruffin Associate Director for Research on Minority Health National Institutes of Health Terry Cornwell Rumsey Director Office of Science Education & Technical Information Department of Energy Calvin H. Smith Deputy Superintendent Cincinnati Public Schools Louis Stokes United States Congressman Esteban E. Torres United States Congressman TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION OPENING SESSION NATIONAL VIDEOCONFERENCE LUNCHEON SESSIONS Luncheon Forum Awards Luncheon AWARD PRESENTATIONS FORUMS & WORKSHOPS Forum on Undergraduate Education Student Forum Directorate Workshops on Education Activities CLOSING SESSION STUDENT RESEARCH COMPETITION: AWARD-WINNING PAPERS Precollege Undergraduate Graduate APPENDICES Appendix A: Conference Program Appendix B: List of Conference Participants Appendix C: List of Conference Exhibitors NOTE: All presentations have been edited. The views expressed by conference participants do not necessarily represent NSF policy. INQUIRIES Questions not addressed in this publication may be directed to the Directorate for Education & Human Resources by writing to: Diversity Conference Coordinator Office of the Assistant Director Directorate for Education and Human Resources National Science Foundation Room 805 4201 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, VA 22230 The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides awards for research and education in the sciences and engineering. The awardee is wholly responsible for the conduct of such research and projects and preparation of the results for publication. The Foundation, therefore, does not assume responsibility for such findings or their interpretation. The Foundation welcomes proposals on behalf of all qualified scientists and engineers, and strongly encourages women, minorities, and persons with disabilities to compete fully in any of the research and research-related programs described in this document. In accordance with Federal statutes and regulations and NSF policies, no person on the grounds of race, color, age, sex, national origin, or disability shall be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving financial assistance from the National Science Foundation. Facilitation Awards for Scientists and Engineers with Disabilities provide funding for special assistance or equipment to enable persons with disabilities (investigators and other staff, including student research assistants) to work on an NSF project. See the program announcement (NSF Publication 91-54), or contact the program coordinator in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. The telephone number is (703) 306-1636. The Foundation has TDD (Telephonic Device for the Deaf) capability, which enables individuals with hearing impairment to communicate with the Division of Human Resource Management about NSF programs, employment, or general information. The telephone number is (703) 306-0090. This document is a summary of a conference supported by the National Science Foundation. It contains remarks by guest speakers and conference participants, some of whom are not members of the NSF staff. Any opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed by such persons are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. INTRODUCTION The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) sponsored the Third National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce from September 29 through October 1, 1994, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. The conference--attended by more than 1,900 persons from the academic, corporate, and government sectors--served as a platform for presenting and discussing the NSF action plan to increase the participation of minorities in the scientific and technological workforce. The action plan was initially formulated at the 1992 diversity conference, and reviewed at the 1993 conference. Presentation of the plan, at this conference, was followed by sessions to gather feedback from participants on implementation strategies. The resulting plan will be published as a separate document after participant comments are incorporated and critiqued by NSF senior policy officials. A broad group of issues related to conference objectives was discussed in a national videoconference, which expanded the conference audience to include thousands of college students and faculty nationwide. The conference agenda also included a forum on undergraduate education to solicit input regarding the future direction of NSF's efforts in this area. As in previous conferences, more than 300 students from elementary to graduate school who participated in NSF-sponsored research activities presented their research in panel and poster sessions. (Abstracts of all student presentations are available in a separate document.) For the first time, students in grades 7-9, representing the Summer Science Camps Program of the EHR directorate, presented at the meeting. The student research competition generated more than 70 outstanding papers, and the winning papers in each category (precollege, undergraduate, and graduate) are presented in these proceedings. This year there was expanded participation by the NSF research directorates. There were more than 50 research presentations by students sponsored by these directorates. In addition, each directorate presented its education-focused activities in a panel setting. This report summarizes the conference activities, including speeches by national leaders in the field of science and technology education and the award presentations. The appendices contain the conference program, a list of conference attendees, and a list of exhibitors. ---------------------- NOTE TO READERS: This electronic version does not contain any figures, photographs or formulas. See printed report. NSF OPENING SESSION PRESIDER Luther S. Williams Assistant Director Education and Human Resources, National Science Foundation (NSF) This is the opening session of the Third National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce. Dr. Roosevelt Calbert, the division director for Human Resource Development, will bring greetings. GREETINGS Roosevelt Calbert Division Director Human Resource Development, Education and Human Resources, NSF Good evening. Welcome to the Third National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce. During the next few days, we will celebrate the achievements of the more than 300 students who participate in several focused and nonfocused programs supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). These students are representative of the nearly 400,000 minority students who participate in NSF programs and who are here in spirit today. What a joy it is to observe these budding scientists and engineers at work. There is a sense of pride, confidence, and energy that permeates the air all around us. To our project directors: You have done a magnificent job. You have stayed the course. Without your wholehearted support, guidance, and commitment, this event would not be possible. We at NSF thank all of you. To our student participants: You are on center stage. I know you are going to take full advantage of the opportunities at this conference to meet and interact with some of the premiere scientific and engineering talent in this nation. We are proud of you and your persistence toward excellence. To those parents in attendance: Thank you for providing that special love and security that only you can impart to your children. Your caring makes our job in education and research much easier. To Dr. Williams and Congressman Stokes: Thank you for your long-range visions and provision of resources, both human and fiscal, to address the issue of improving education and research across all of this nation. But in the midst of this celebration, we must also take time for retrospection, because, as you have heard many times before, if we do not learn from the past, we are subject to repeat it. We must never return to the time when we do not make the provision of quality education for all students a priority. This conference confirms our commitment that all students be well served by our educational system, with special emphasis on science, engineering, and mathematics. Again, I thank all of you for your presence at this momentous occasion. REMARKS Joyce B. Justice Assistant Director Social and Behavioral Sciences and Education, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Executive Office of the President I am not Congressman Stokes, but I am here to bring you greetings on behalf of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House. It is a great pleasure to be here today. As one of the people who attended the first national conference, it is great to watch something grow and prosper. Science education and the diversity of the scientific and technological workforce are important aspects of what we do and care about in OSTP. In August, the vice president, on behalf of the president, released our science policy document. In our document, we called for work on a national human resources policy. I am here to pay tribute again to Dr. Williams and his vision. You have already moved far ahead of where we are. You have given us the blueprint for extending science and mathematics education and science, mathematics, and technological skills to all Americans. This country will not continue to be a leader of the free world unless we find ways to increase the participation of all of us in all that is America. So welcome. Have a good conference. Learn from each other. Renew old friendships. I am pleased to be here with you. Luther Williams Thank you, Joyce. Dr. Justice is fairly new to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and obviously has a very important role to play in ensuring that the agenda reflected in this conference stays before the administration. KEYNOTE ADDRESS Louis Stokes Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies (VA-HUD-IA) United States House of Representatives Good evening. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here tonight as the keynote speaker for this plenary session of the National Science Foundation's third conference on diversity in the scientific and technological workforce. I want to thank NSF and its director, Dr. Neal Lane, for inviting me to speak before you. I want to also thank Dr. Luther Williams, the assistant director of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, for his continued leadership in the areas of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. For those who may not be aware, the great strides made by NSF in this area could not have been accomplished without Dr. Williams' commitment to and vision for our Nation's pursuit of excellence in science and technology. This conference--and most notably the students whose work is being recognized during this forum--are a testament to his commitment to this issue. I am here tonight to speak on an important topic: science and engineering education, especially for minorities. I have also been asked to speak briefly on Congress's views on science and engineering, and the role the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee has played in these efforts. As many of you know, as a Member of Congress for 26 years and as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that provides the funding for the National Science Foundation, I am a strong advocate of programs that focus on educating minorities. As only one representative, I cannot present the views of all the Members of Congress; however, as the subcommittee chairman responsible for NSF and an advocate for the minority community, I feel confident in expressing my views on the future of science and engineering education. It is all too apparent that, in this rapidly changing society in which new technological advances occur at ever-increasing rates, society must be prepared to face the challenges of a technology-driven environment. To this end, Congress has worked for some time--as has NSF--to improve science and science education in America. To its credit, the administration has also recognized the needs in this area and has recently made efforts to improve our standing in this arena. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have both taken an interest in science, engineering, and technology. I am sure many of you know, or will hear about, the administration's science policy document, "Science in the National Interest," which sets out the goals for science, engineering, and technology in the coming years. This document charges the Nation to raise the scientific and technological literacy of all Americans. In their opening remarks in this document, the president and vice president describe the importance of science and technology. I would like to quote, just briefly, a few of their remarks: "Technology--the engine of economic growth--creates jobs, builds new industries, and improves our standard of living. Science fuels technology's engine. It is essential to our children's future that we continue to invest in fundamental research. Equally important, science and mathematics education must provide our children with the knowledge and skills they need to prepare for the high-technology jobs of the future, to become leaders in scientific research, and to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship in the 21st century." I am very encouraged by the administration's leadership with regard to science and education, and its commitment to making an investment in science today for building America tomorrow. I am particularly pleased that, with respect to our concerns about minorities in science and engineering, the document states as one of its goals the production of the finest scientists and engineers for the 21st century. Referring again to the administration's science policy document, another statement that is equally important is that America's tradition of excellence can only be sustained by engaging the talents of our diverse population. In fact, our Nation's strength was born out of our diversity and diversity continues to be one of our great strengths. Yet, despite America's emphasis on its melting pot, this Nation has not fully utilized or developed the skills of all the people--especially minorities. In most fields of science and engineering, women, minorities, and people with disabilities are underrepresented in proportion to the general population. As we have seen time and time again, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans continue to be underrepresented and underutilized in a number of areas, but particularly in science and science education. There are numerous studies that document this fact; many of these studies have been directed by some of you present at this conference. Part of the problem, of course, is our educational system. Learning to be a scientist, an engineer, or a mathematician takes many years of training and requires young people to be involved in science education early in the process. The K-12 educational system inadequately prepares or motivates students, particularly minority students, for a career in science and engineering. Twenty-five percent of white, 34 percent of African American, and 37 percent of Hispanic fourth graders receive science instruction no more than once a week. Further, according to measurements by the National Assessment of Educational Progress and other statistics, science knowledge and skills of African American and Hispanic students lag 18 to 30 percent behind those of white students. In addition, recent reports indicate that the average literacy levels for African Americans and Hispanics ranged from 80 to 90 percent below that of whites for certain language components. As these statistics indicate, minorities are underrepresented in science, and improved science education is needed for minorities. Without a doubt, it is time to stop talking and take action. It is time to make a change, to improve the science education of all of our children so that we may engage their talents for the future. Let me take a moment to applaud NSF for taking action to address the problem of educating minorities in science and engineering. NSF has worked to develop a strategy to confront the issue of increasing the number of minorities involved in science and science education. NSF has even gone so far as to publicly state its goals of increasing the number of minority undergraduate science and engineering degree recipients annually from approximately 14,000 to 50,000 by the year 2000 and to increase the number of minorities receiving science, engineering, and mathematics doctorate degrees to 2,000 annually. NSF has developed several programs targeted at increasing minority participation in the fields of science and technology, including the following: . Alliances for Minority Participation (AMP) . Research Careers for Minority Scholars . Minority Research Centers of Excellence . Partnerships for Minority Student Achievement . Research Improvement in Minority Institutions . Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities These programs are designed to involve participants actively, from kindergarten through undergraduate school, encouraging them to pursue careers in science. As the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee heard from Director Lane when he testified on the fiscal year 1995 budget for NSF, great strides have been made in this area. Dr. Lane stated that genuine progress has been made in boosting the science, engineering, and mathematics enrollment of underrepresented minorities. For example, AMP, started in 1991, has funded 15 AMP consortia thus far, and the aggregate minority science, engineering, and mathematics baccalaureate degrees awarded for the first two AMP programs has increased by 15 percent. While NSF has worked hard to establish those programs and increase minority participation in science, the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee has also taken action in this area. This subcommittee has been a strong supporter of science education for many years. Since the mid-1980's, the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee has not only encouraged NSF to improve science education, but it has provided additional funding to do so. In the past 10 years, the subcommittee has increased the budget requested by the Education and Human Resources Directorate of NSF (which is responsible for science education and for many of the minority programs) every year. The Education and Human Resources Directorate has gone from a budget of $87 million in fiscal year 1985 to $570 million for fiscal year 1994, a 550 percent increase over a 10-year period. These increased funds have allowed NSF to expand its programs in the educational area and to initiate critical new programs such as AMP. According to NSF statistics, grant awards for minorities in all programs increased from 141 in 1985 to 390 awards in 1994, almost tripling the number of grant awards to minorities. You may be interested to know that the increased fiscal year 1995 appropriation for NSF was signed by the president just yesterday. For the coming year, the subcommittee was able to provide a total of $3.36 billion for NSF. Included in this total is $606 million for education and human resources, an increase of $36 million over the 1994 level and $20 million more than requested by the administration. This is an increase of more than 6 percent above the current level. Over the years, the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee has articulated its support for science, engineering, and technology education in the House reports accompanying our appropriation bills. Once again this year, I made clear my strong support for the NSF programs that are designed to attract and retain more women and minorities in science and engineering. In the House report, I also went further and recommended to NSF that the AMP program be expanded in scope to include a mathematics and science teacher education component under the same terms as those currently serving the AMP students. Through this expansion, the AMP program could address the critical shortage of K-12 mathematics and science teachers of color. I hope that NSF will work to make this recommendation a reality. I am interested in other issues related to NSF as well. In the past 2 years, I have been instrumental in working with NSF in creating a consortium for studying violence. At the request of the VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee, NSF considered the feasibility of establishing a center for the study of violence and concluded that such a center was both feasible and desirable. For fiscal year 1995, the subcommittee has provided NSF $2 million for initiating a consortium of institutions for the interdisciplinary study of violence. This study should provide valuable insight into the problem of violence which could be utilized in our educational system as well. NSF has made great strides in improving science and science education in America and should be commended for its instrumental role in this regard. With congressional support, NSF can and has made a difference in seeking new ways to build a sound future for our children through advances in science and technology. In the years to come, I hope that--through the Congress's help and encouragement--NSF will be able to achieve its many goals in increasing participation in the sciences for all generations, and particularly for minorities. Science needs to be diverse. I look forward to working with you in this regard. Thank you. SPECIAL PRESENTATION Presenter: Luther S. Williams, Assistant Director, EHR Awardee: Louis Stokes, Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies (VA-HUD-IA), United States House of Representatives Mr. Chairman, to do this as it really should be done, regard the words I am about to read to you as coming from the students in the Summer Science Camps, Careers Access, and all the other programs you have talked about, K-12 and undergraduate. "Presented to the Honorable Louis Stokes, U.S. Congressman, for dedicated, sustained, and outstanding leadership and service developing the nation's diverse talent in science and technology. September 30, 1994." --Luther S. Williams NATIONAL VIDEOCONFERENCE: POLICY ROUNDTABLE PRESIDER Roosevelt Calbert Division Director, Human Resource Development Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), National Science Foundation (NSF) MODERATOR Luther S. Williams Assistant Director EHR, NSF PARTICIPANTS Peter H. Gerber, Director, Education Programs, MacArthur Foundation Jaime Oaxaca, National Science Board Member and Vice Chairman, Coronado Communications Corporation Lynette P. Padmore, Professor of Biology and Project Director, Florida-Georgia Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) James L. Powell, National Science Board Member and President and CEO, Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Diana Garcia Prichard, Research Scientist, Eastman Kodak Company Terry Cornwell Rumsey, Director, Office of Science Education and Technical Information, Department of Energy OPENING REMARKS Roosevelt Calbert Good afternoon. Welcome to the National Science Foundation's Roundtable Videoconference. This videoconference is one of the major activities of NSF's Third National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce. This national conference has the following objectives: o To sustain national attention on the issues and concerns that undergird the science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education of minorities who are underrepresented in these fields. o To highlight the National Science Foundation's accomplishments in broadening the participation of minorities in the science and engineering enterprises through its focused programs for this group. o To honor leaders in education and research who have made unusual contributions to the academic achievements of minority students in science and engineering. o To provide a forum for presenting and discussing the revised version of the NSF National Action Plan. o To provide opportunities for minority students to demonstrate their capabilities in the performance of research. o To allow broad interactions among the academic, congressional, business, industrial, and professional communities in the education of minorities in science, engineering, and mathematics. Today, this teleconference will address the last objective. We are pleased to have all of our guests with us today. Dr. Luther S. Williams, Assistant Director for the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation, will be our moderator for the teleconference. He will lead the discussion of several broad issues regarding the enhancement of minority student achievement in science and mathematics, ranging from the federal government's role in assuring scientific literacy for all citizens to the critical need to educate minority students to be productive participants in the workforce of our technological society. PANEL DISCUSSION Williams: I would like to start with an exchange on a generic issue. The issue speaks to the frequently expressed call for scientific literacy, which I think has been adopted broadly throughout society as a national goal. The question is not the merit of scientific literacy. It is, rather, the role. I would like you to give your answer to the question, What should be the Federal sector's responsibility for scientific literacy, compared to that of other sectors? Cornwell Rumsey: First of all, we all recognize that there is a need for appropriate funding, and I am sure persons on the panel will elaborate on that, but beyond appropriate funding, I believe it's necessary for various sectors of the Federal Government to become aware of what other sectors are doing, because an informed constituency would be a supportive constituency. To the extent that our representatives are knowledgeable about what we are doing and are supportive of what we are doing, the public as a whole would be more supportive of our efforts. Williams: Implicit in your response is the notion that the Federal Government--the various agencies supporting these programs of science literacy--would profit from a communications program in which the Federal Government would state its goals and objectives. That is, the Federal Government should explain the progress it is making toward achieving those goals, as opposed to simply evolving its responsibilities for discrete funding and assuming that a broader community actually understands them or appreciates them. You also spoke specifically to that constituency. It seems to me that something of the sort that I just described would be required in order to have that kind of communication. Oaxaca: You know we are going into the 21st century with profound changes in the world, and these changes are going to be largely driven by the one superpower that is left, and that is the United States of America. I think we must all remember that whether we want to accept it or not, any country that has unraveled, did so because it did not meet the three legs of the stool that have made America the premiere country that it is--a strong defense, economic stability, and social progress. Now each one of those legs requires a quality education. It requires the best and the brightest and the vision of these young people who are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. If we look at Haiti, North Korea, and Bosnia, if we look at any country that has just gone through major turmoil, one or more of those legs collapsed. In each of those countries there was a very small set of "haves" and a very large set of "have nots." That gap is widening. When Luther and I were on the Task Force for Women, Minorities, and the Handicapped in 1989, the numbers we used were 85 percent of the emerging workforce would be women, minorities, and the physically disabled--I think that number still holds. The problem that we face is not race or people oriented, it is power-transfer oriented. People do not want to give up power. What we must do is develop the talents of the whole American population in such a way that we become even better than we already are. This leads to people being phased into positions of power, positions of policymaking, positions that are going to be good for our country. We have to attack the whole education problem in parallel across the whole continuum, and we have to do it with programs that go all the way back to prenatal care, because the percentage of kids being born in America to single women is pushing 40 percent. We start at the very beginning with the basic premise that anybody can do it. I am referring to what Jaime Escalante calls "ganas," which is desire. By the same token, in these days of budget constraints and a changing environment, given the fact that 40 million people today are working out of their home, we must have an initial mindset about computer literacy. We have to jump on the information highway. At the same time, the American public is going to demand accountability, so we must have measures in place along the way so that we can have a midcourse correction. All of these things must be pushed. Now when we talk about scientific literacy, look at the demands in today's technology. I have a mother-in-law who is 87 years old. She has to take 16 different medicines every week. We had to educate her about the problems if she takes them out of order, if she does not take them at the right time, etc. So scientific literacy for someone who is elderly is different than scientific literacy for someone who is pregnant or someone who is in the first grade, or someone who is just getting out of high school and is making the decision to go to a community college or a four-year college or to work. If we do not upgrade to that level in parallel with all the other things we're doing, then we have made a terrible mistake. Williams: On the last point, I would like to use it to direct your attention to another issue. When you were responding, Jaime, I was struck with your general concern about engaging the total society around the broad issue of science literacy. I want to ask your response to that issue if, in fact, you focused it on the agenda of this conference, how to actually change the landscape in terms of participation and diversity, how to change it in a substantial and highly expedited fashion. For your response, I offer the following: One of the current deficiencies, leaving aside how noteworthy the individual programs are, is that this whole enterprise is not connected with the larger national dynamic. For example, clearly, the country is dealing with health care reform and acknowledging that this is a major step-function, a transition essential for the country into the next century. The country has dealt with fiscal controls, the deficit reduction act (leaving aside how one feels about it), and the crime bill. There is an emergence of reform efforts. But I would submit for your consideration that mathematics, science, and technology education in the specific instance of minorities or even the overall education reform effort is not accorded a comparable position in national dynamics. There is something called education reform that is taking place in the country but it's operating at a different level. It is as if it is a desirable good, not an obligatory good. My inference is that health care reform is obligatory. It has been connected to the very epicenter of national transactions. Powell: I would like to take off on that, Luther, and in typical Washington fashion, not answer quite the question that you just posed--I have learned that from watching some of the television programs. I would like to go back to the principle that underlies what you are saying. There are clearly many people in this country who believe that every citizen has a fundamental right to good health care. Probably nobody would deny that in public, but in terms of their actions and their votes, you would have to conclude that people have different feelings about it. If I go back to why we are at this conference, why you and I are working with NSF and our colleagues are here, I think it goes back to the fact that we believe that every American or every human being has a fundamental right to achieve their human potential. You could argue that is the most fundamental right of all. Therefore, every human being and every youngster has a right to at least have the opportunity to become a scientist or to learn about science. If you turn from the principle of the matter to the practical side of it and you look at a country as large as ours with all sorts of problems and needing to advance in a wide set of areas, it is demonstrable that we need to draw on the talent of all of our citizens. If we only draw on the talent of half of our citizens, we can not thereby support 100 percent of our citizens. So we have to draw, as a practical matter, on the talents of everybody, of all races and both sexes. I think if you look at our history, at the problems that race has presented for this country since the beginning, if you look at the economic problems of the States and the major cities, I think you would come quickly to the conclusion that education, and specifically science education, is like defense. It is like transportation. It is an issue that cannot be solved and will not be solved on the State level. It has to be solved, if it can be, at the Federal level. Therefore, I have long believed that there is a very strong, appropriate Federal role in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology. Ten or 12 years ago that was not generally accepted. There was a move to get rid of the Department of Education. There was a move to eliminate funding for science education and NSF. Fortunately, neither of those things happened. You are taking this a step further, Luther, and asking whether, given all of those things, we need a more targeted effort and a much stronger effort to solve the issues of minority education, and I am inclined to think that we do. I am inclined to think that unless there is a coordinated national, Federal effort-- not just at NSF, but at all the agencies--we really will not make satisfactory progress on this goal. Gerber: Luther, I think we have to be very pragmatic about this. The Federal Government expresses a national interest. The national interest is in having an economy that has more people supporting it than there are people who are depending upon it and not contributing to it. We have a society that would like to have that, but we also have a society where some folks do not like to live next to other people. They do not want to work next to other people. They do not want to have their kids socialize with other kids. Now in the society we are talking about, everybody is mutually dependent. It is going to take a targeted, strenuous effort on the part of the Federal Government to express a national interest in the collective value that we have for everyone to learn in order to go beyond these individual preferences and social patterns to an educational system connected to an economic system. Therefore, I think that your idea of a strong communications effort is very appropriate. The problem is that it is going to have to confront people with unsettling ideas and cause them to think about things in their own lives that are not consistent with these thoughts that we are expressing here right now. Cornwell Rumsey: Yes, absolutely. First of all, I agree with everything that I have heard my colleagues say thus far. Furthermore, if you take a hard look at some of the work that the Federal agencies have done over the last couple of years with respect to supporting science education programs, it has been good, and it should be recognized. However, a lot of those efforts have been fractious. They have been independent. The reality is that there is a sense of urgency now that we have not had before and there is a major need that we must orchestrate and be able to articulate clearly for the American public. A number of subcommittees are under the guidance of the National Science and Technology Council, one of which is the Committee on Education and Technology. That committee attempts to bring to the table all of the Federal agencies that have a vested interest in ensuring that the pipeline of future scientists and engineers is assured so that our workforce needs are met. The second need, but equally as important, is to contribute to the larger goal of achieving a scientifically and technically literate workforce. A number of memoranda of understanding are currently being pursued between the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, between the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. We are all in this together, and as my colleague to my right pointed out, it is a problem that is not going to go away. We really do require the best ideas, the best resources in the public sector, in the private sector, and in academia to be able to identify those opportunities for success. We then need a communications strategy that helps people understand how that success translates into making their quality of life better today and in the future. Williams: Another issue I would suggest is that developments in the last year-and-a-half have served to raise the threshold against all of our efforts and aspirations to move minorities into the scientific and technical arena. They are manifold, but I want to cite three developments and I would like your responses to them, starting with Diana. One is the advent of the information superhighway, which, as an expression, is rhetoric, but beneath it clearly is a whole set of fundamentally important issues that have to do with learning and productivity; have to do with judicious use of technology in delivering information; and have to do with access--a set of issues, Jaime, that will be much more important in terms of impact than the ability of your mother-in-law to take her medicine appropriately--because the participation level is heightened by technology. The issue of access is one variable, that in the interagency context, has a very important role for a department that rarely does business with us in an interagency context, and that is the Department of Commerce. Second, in the aggregate, what are we really concerned with in the instance of minorities? What we often refer to as "science education" is what I would term "training." An outlier--and, some might argue, a counterproductive outlier--are the multibillion-dollar expenditures of the Department of Labor. It seems to me that in terms of its return to society, a Labor Department Job Training Partnership Act program that attempts to take a 25-year-old person in the City of Chicago and give him short-term training to enter the computer technology sector is an ineffective approach to problem solving; especially if that person brings to that process an absolute paucity of knowledge of mathematics and science. I am talking about an individual who has not benefitted from the K-12 educational process and we're trying to do a repair job at age 25 because the person needs employment. So the second issue I want to raise is the need to conjoin training with education. The third point is one Peter mentioned, and that is whether the evolving cultural conditions in the country--some of which are promoted by sociobehavioral conditions, that is, are motivated by fiscal stringencies, unemployment, job transformations, etc.--disallow making progress in this arena on equal opportunity considerations alone. In other words, is it good business? So through three factors I have tried to take what would be an otherwise generic linear problem-solving strategy in which we are really calling for all of the players to come to the table, for which we want to have an effective communications strategy, and I have made it more difficult by saying that there are other major players who are not at the table. The implications of the advent of the information infrastructure are unknown, but it clearly increases the complexity of this arena. Certainly, in the sociobehavioral domain we need to candidly state to the American people what we are attempting to do. Are we really attempting to provide the opportunity for minorities to join in the scientific and technical enterprise, or are we attempting to redefine quality of citizenship? Garcia Prichard: I would like to comment first on the superhighway. One of the things that I have noticed is the whole generation of people out there who are involved in the information system that now have access to people in the university. For instance, at the Rochester Institute of Technology, there is an Institute for the Deaf. That informational system has opened up a whole new arena to these people. The same could be said about the physically handicapped. As more and more of the young people get into that informational system, it is very important for all of us to become part of that, and there has got to be some monitoring, because it is surprising what comes through some of those systems. The other issue I want to comment on is not only communication among agencies, but also their collaboration. If something becomes a national issue, then all the agencies should come together and pool their resources, because there is no question that the fragmented dollar is not going to be as effective as a concerted effort. So I would even go a step further in the communication part of it. The other part is the training. There are many gaps in people's education as they move along the pipeline that make it harder and harder for them to move farther along. So when they finally come to a job, some people are well trained, others are not. There must be some kind of intervention in these big gaps that we see, like the transition between high school and college and community college, etc. Job training is a big issue. As we move toward a more technically sophisticated society, there are more people left behind. Being part of the Eastman Kodak Company, where we are "rightsizing" and "downsizing," what I have seen is people who have been there for 10 or 15 years who have lost touch with the technology of today. They are no longer as productive as somebody who is coming out of school. So we really want the most trained person to come, and science literacy and all the other comments that were made refer to economic development and the urgency of getting to that point of work based on technology. Oaxaca: I think we face an interesting problem. Historically, "minority" has been associated with an affirmative action check-off box. Consequently, America at large, I am convinced, does not really recognize these programs as an issue of national security. They think it is a "gimme" or throw-away for the downtrodden, which is not the case at all, because whether anybody wants to accept it or not, the demographics are there, and I maintain that 85 percent of the emerging workforce is going to be the so-called minorities, and that is a lot of people. So you have to change the mindset of Congress, of corporate America, of everybody whom you are dealing with. You are starting to see it in corporate America. You're starting to see it at the conferences, where the recruiters are out there working all of the minorities, because they actually do very well when they make it through the pass. At the same time, if you look at the policy that was set by the Federal Government in the so-called defense conversion, we have laid off thousands and thousands and thousands of the most talented people in the world, the ones who brought the Soviet Union to its knees, and there has been zero planning about how to utilize that talent. Most of them go out and start their own little businesses, which is fine, and that is what you want, but it is not focused in any way to solve any national problem. It is not focused in any way to set up for the future, to be the mentors and the guiding folk for the young people who are coming along. The issue of retraining is, in my mind, one of not being effective at all, because you do not see retraining. In today's world of the special interest group, the squeaky wheel gets all of the oil, not just some of it. For example, in Los Angeles, they will lay off a total of 25,000 people at TRW, Hughes, and Northrop and it comes out on page 16 in a little article. You try to lay off 23 people in the City of Los Angeles, and the world comes to an end because they are civil servants who are working for the city and they have a constituency that says the world's going to come to an end. Yet the 25,000 talented people you have laid off are Ph.D.'s and communications scientists. I have an example in which they called back a TRW employee who has everything but his thesis done for his Ph.D. (in telecommunications and all that transsatellite stuff) to retrain him to be an 18-wheel truck driver, a nine-week course. Why? Because they get a tax incentive at TRW. It is criminal, when these people could be working on all sorts of other stuff. There is no training, there are no programs, there is no tie-in. There is a full-blown disconnect. And until, across the board, people recognize that this is not an affirmative action check-off box, it is an issue of national security. I think we are now at the point where it is a marketing problem, it is a public relations problem, because all of the infrastructure is in place, but I do not think we can wait for the normal course of events, because America only reacts at a crisis time. Powell: I would like to take off on your first point, Luther, which has to do with information technology, which I have long been interested in as an amateur, and, as you know, I was a college administrator for many years. We have been hearing for a long time that the computer is going to revolutionize the way we deliver education and the way people learn, and I still believe that it will. I believe that very firmly. But I would also have to admit that it doesn't seem to have happened yet. I think before we worry too much about the information highway, we ought to worry about providing access to basic computing equipment to essentially everybody, every student. And if you think about it, I don't believe that we have approached this in a comprehensive way. My understanding is that we are letting 1,000 flowers bloom. If a school right beside Microsoft can scrape up the money (which is a little easier if you are there), it can get thoroughly outfitted with hardware and software and can make tremendous advances, and I am glad that somebody's doing it. But I probably would not have to go very far from here to find classrooms in which it would be surprising to find a computer, and if there were one, it would not be very well used. It would be an Apple II or something back several generations. In other words, I am saying that I do not see any coordinated massive Federal effort to try to produce this revolution. I think that unless that happens, we are going to miss a great number of opportunities, and I think of it the way I think of the NSF science education programs--the way they were not too many years ago, when we were supporting what you might call pinnacles of excellence, good work here and a good program there. I voted for these; these were fine programs. Now we are thinking systemic. I believe we ought to think systemically about using information technology to revolutionize the way we teach and students learn. I cannot prove it, but I have a feeling that it could have more of an impact on minority students who generally are more deprived and do not have access to this equipment than it would on majority students. So I would like to see if there is some way that NSF could take the lead in bringing about this revolution that I see as inevitable, but that is taking longer than I ever imagined that it would. Gerber: I think a more fundamental revolution is needed, one that sets high standards of learning for all students. That would be a true revolution in this country. And I think following that revolution, we will have equipment, computing power, and other things brought to bear on the education of all kids. Until we have high standards of learning for all kids, we are not going to make the investment because we can slide off of that investment. Those standards for student learning are going to bear on the standards for teachers. They are going to bear on the standards for the quality of curriculum that's delivered, the timeliness of the materials that are available, the quality of the physical facilities that are available. An hour ago, the House was supposed to take up the conference report, and I hope that they passed a bill which is intended to elevate the standards through Chapter I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. If they did not pass it this year, it will come back again. But I think that is the fundamental revolution. And the point I would make about that revolution is that the Federal Government has to articulate it, each community in which kids live has to articulate and demand high standards for their kids--not relatively high standards or standards that are compromised by their socioeconomic status or some other factor, but high standards for all kids. This needs to be a cry from the people to the Congress as well as from the government to the people. Williams: Your reference to standards leads me to another area for your responses. One of the experiences NSF has had in dealing with large urban communities through the Urban Systemic Initiatives Program, has essentially three components. One: Substantial confusion, vacillation, and I would even say reluctance to make as a uniform condition high standards for the entire enterprise, which is to say for our students. Two: In many of the transactions in these schools--and I am not implying that the schools in the 25 cities with which NSF is operating are unique, but that is my sample at the moment--there's an incredible infusion of resources in support of what I would call deficit models for education. I am implying, at least from my point of view, that this is undesirable, a deficit as opposed to an achievement model. Three: I have reached a tentative conclusion that there is a correlation between the amount of resource expenditure and one's ability to institutionalize high standards for our students. My question to you is, what do you think is required to actually entice these large bureaucracies to make the transition from a deficit to an achievement model? Let me make clear the implications. The achievement model says that a collection of third graders must, in fact, have a series of experiences. In a deficit model, some trivial fraction can escape from it--I am being uncharitable--and move to an achievement model, but for the substantial majority, what they get rewarded for is pedestrian or minimum performance, and if that continues, then you cannot have this high standard of which Peter speaks and you will not have the outcomes that we have all talked about in terms of educational product. So the question is not trivial: Are there strategies that could be employed by individuals who are outside of that bureaucracy that could aid the system in redirecting those resources? Let me be very explicit about what I am saying. Maybe everyone else understood this, but what I have discovered in the last year-and-a-half is that in very large urban communities, there is a multibillion-dollar enterprise (when I say "multi," I do not mean tens of billions, I mean hundreds) that is entirely devoted to a deficit model. Powell: I lived in Philadelphia for several years, a city that is really coming back under an excellent mayor. We also had a wonderful superintendent in Connie Clayton, who has retired. I do not know the new superintendent. But I think to bring about what you're talking about, it is another kind of revolution along the lines of what Peter was saying, one thing it would require is leadership, and it is not just a cliche. You would have to have leadership from the mayor of Philadelphia, in this case, and I think you would. You would have to have leadership to get a high standards model adopted by the city politicians, by the congressional delegation, by the parent groups. You would have to have a superintendent who really was willing to go out on a limb in favor of it. You would have to generate a wide base of support, led by a few key people. Then you might have a chance. Padmore: If I may add to that, I think we have to tie high standards to high expectations. In an earlier statement, you mentioned the fact that you can have short-term training, but short-term training should be focused. It is like employing someone for 4 hours of labor. It makes a difference if that individual is thinking, "I am working four hours and I am making $10 an hour"; if he or she thinks, "I am working 4 hours to support my family"; or if he or she thinks, "I am working 4 hours to build a building that will support a structure that will benefit other individuals." You have to tie in high standards with high expectations. I think to the extent that we do that, our efforts, both in the educational system and outside the educational system, will be more beneficial to society. Cornwell Rumsey: I think that the language that we use is an important enabler that must be understood. We have talked about communication strategy, we have talked about marketing. One district comes to mind--the unified school system in Oakland, California--that has had significant success with respect to their systemic reform efforts in science and math education. You talked about deficit versus achievement. Jaime talked about the so-called minority. Language is important. If we are going to advance these notions, making sure that we have all of the partners who have a vested interest in the success, we must come up with a new way of describing this so that people understand. For instance, I have dropped out of my vocabulary certain words. I don't use the word "minority." We talk in global terms about global competitiveness, the global village. Human resources are global as well. When you take a look at people of color and women, we are not minorities, so I don't use that word. There are messages that get transmitted when you use certain labels, for example, "disadvantaged" or "people at risk." I am the mother of an 8-year-old son who is at the point in his development where he tries to validate his self-concept and his self-esteem. Can you imagine for a moment being in his shoes, turning on the television, and being confronted with images, both overt and subliminal, that constantly say you are disadvantaged or you are not quite equal? I think we have to be mindful of that, and I think that we have to find new metaphors and new descriptors to encourage everyone to recognize the value that inclusion brings and the sense of urgency that we have all addressed. Oaxaca: I have a bit of a disagreement with Peter. I have no problem with high standards. If we look at the military model that was used in Desert Storm and again in Haiti (and there's the classic operable workforce diversity, the only true one probably in the universe), high standards went along with the best equipment and they had no current parallel. We couldn't have one to the exclusion of the other, because the training occurs and it is a closed-loop system that keeps building up, either good or bad. Alternatively, look at the Iraqis with lousy equipment and they went the other way. They had high standards and lousy equipment and they went down the toilet. I hit the streets in South Central Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. I talk to kids, and then I hang around with the smart set and I talk to those kids, and they know--they are on CompuServe and they are 6 years old. Go to East Los Angeles or South Central Los Angeles and talk about CompuServe or Internet and they give you a blank look. We have to bring in the equipment early, the very best equipment. We have a mindset, once again, that the groups in those areas merit the used equipment from the smart set because they can use it, as opposed to saying they merit the very best because they need it more. We also have a group in the science and technology community who don't want any of this to happen, because they are like the American Medical Association. If we only have one brain surgeon, that guy can really charge for operations. Therefore, they will bring in Soviet scientists at the expense of Americans, and they do it consistently. Yet these people will come into town, get financial aid, and then they will leave town with intellectual property and compete against us--and we give them accolades! It is insane. We must take care of America first, and then worry about the rest. But there is a mindset that a Viennese accent is worth 50 grand in the marketplace and a ghetto or a barrio accent costs 50 grand. That is dumb. We have to change that mindset, and I submit that the only way we are going to do that is to work hard with the talent that we have, and I think we have enough talent now to put people in positions of policy decisionmaking, and then we need the leader who says, "Here's what's going to happen." When I was president of one of the divisions of Northrop, they would ask me, "Why did you place so-and-so with that funny last name or that Afro-American there?" That wasn't what they were asking. They were saying, "I don't want him there or want her there." And my answer was very simple. "I'm president." Gerber: Earlier in his remarks, Jaime said that he disagreed with the point that standards needed to precede and pull the investment and the equipment. He sharpened my thinking on this. I do agree with him that we can make a front-end investment. Unfortunately, in education, we have a history of making front-end investments and those front ends have ended up in closets and garages at schools. What we also need along with the investment and these high standards is a press on the schools to make good use of them, so here are a couple of ideas that I have in that regard. One would be that the colleges that have significant enrollments of minority students--and still use that term--ought to go back to the elementary schools whence those kids came and take a hard look at the preparation those kids are getting, and exert some pressure on behalf of the kids who are still in 3rd and 4th and 5th grades with regard to what those teachers are doing, the expectations that those teachers have, the satisfaction they have about the progress that those kids are making. Another suggestion would be that those who advocate and advance civil rights on behalf of folks ought to visit these schools and ought not to be satisfied with the attention given to these kids. You know the old line about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable--they ought to afflict anybody who is comfortable with the progress that these kids are making in their schools in grades K-12. I think that the outside organizations based in the community and the colleges that have to do a lot of extra work with these kids both have a stake in a more efficient, effective, and equitable system at the lower grades, and we need that press. Then, when the investment is made, people will make use of it. Powell: As a former college president, I would agree with you that colleges, faculties, and administrators ought to be concerned about what happens in the grade schools, but they are not and they will not be. They will not be because they have so many problems and so many demands of their own. There are exceptions, of course, and almost every university now has some sort of a program that reaches out to a grade school or to a high school. I do not want to sound overly cynical. I just think that they have so many concerns of their own, so many financial problems, they simply will not help us solve the problem of K-12 education fast enough. I think information technology, the right kind of investment, could do a lot more. Williams: Your comments about the schools, resources, how to design reform, and the specific instance of minorities stimulate another issue. There are individuals, albeit I would suspect small in number, who have come to the conclusion that the following obtains. If you consider the problems in the K-12 sector or even pre-K-12 as one dimension, the transition to undergraduate as another (leaving aside whether it is a two-year or four-year college), and then to graduate education, one of the challenges is as follows: Imagine the whole issue as one very, very complicated problem set, so the issue is problem solving among the professionals who are resident in the K-12 sector and in the college and university sector. This was stimulated by your observation that they will not do it. Even in the industrial sector, we do not have among the constellation of professionals a cadre of individuals who know how to problem solve across multiple domains. Indeed, Peter, there is a contribution to be made by the collegiate sector working with the high schools, but that is transitory. We do not emphasize as a professional niche individuals who work in the two sectors and who can, in terms of mathematics or science education, blur the distinction between 10th grade and the sophomore year of college. There are no individuals who problem solve in the instance of youngsters who go into the technological workforce with enormous abilities, work for 10 years, and then the industries change. What kind of retraining should they receive in order to continue to get a return on that investment? Professionally speaking, it is a highly bifurcated industry; that implies that each of these little sectors is self-contained, and they obviously are not. The suggestion, therefore, is that we really need to grow (for lack of a better expression) a different kind of problem solver and to stop taxing individuals whose expertise really is to be quite good in this little narrow domain, but who are not multifaceted problem solvers. Long preface to the issue. What is your reaction to it? Do we need such people? Cornwell Rumsey: I think that your idea is one that holds great merit. When you talk about those professionals who are in the private sector or in the public sector and you look at exchange programs that have worked quite well, the fact of the matter is, we must kick it up a level. We have to think more broadly. There are skill sets, problem-solving skill sets, that transfer and ought to transfer between the private sector, the public sector, and academia. We talked earlier about learning as a continuum, from prekindergarten all the way through advanced studies. If that is the case for the students who are traveling through the pipeline, that should be the view of all of us. As we come from our different perspectives, we should take a look at that continuum, and ask a question: How can we contribute, given our certain sets of competencies, to solve the problem? I think you are absolutely right. Garcia Prichard: I agree with you, Luther. It seems that the educational system has been one-dimensional, or two-dimensional at best, but the world and the economy are changing so they are multidimensional. Not only do you have technological advances, the information age, but you have a change in the people and the demographics in the United States. So if you take thinkers who are two-dimensional and apply them to systems that are multidimensional, you're not going to get an answer. What you are going to get is what I call a marshmallow effect. You push in here and it pushes out there, so you never really solve the problem until you come in together as a group. The multidimensional and multitask thinker is the one, I think, who is going to solve the problem, because you can no longer take this as a two-dimensional problem. Williams: That is generally true, and I would argue that it takes on even greater significance in the case of trying to make progress in the programs represented at this conference, because there are, in effect, multiples. There are additional variables that are brought to the process that enhance its complexity. For several decades, we have been involved in efforts that are reflected in this conference. Some progress has been made. The progress is very unequal, as I implied this morning in my general comments. I think generally one has reason to applaud what has been accomplished from precollege through undergraduate in the case of engineering, but we really do not know what was possible. Do you understand the point of my comment? Even if we declare it successful, on a relative scale, how does that relate to what could have been achieved? So we need to understand that in terms of production. Second, the response (at least until recent years) in the case of sciences and mathematics has been somewhat less than exemplary. If in the next few seconds each of you had the opportunity to think about a plan that took (in the classic scholarly context) the best knowledge, practice, and experience that we have today and created an agenda for the next 10 years, what would be the five most important elements of that agenda? And the agenda for the next 10 years is to promote a step-function change from where we are now. I should have said that, in terms of the goal. What would you do, based on what we know? What is the return for all of the efforts in terms of being able to design the future? Powell: Just to mention two points that I think we generally agree on, one would be to maintain high standards. The other would be to provide adequate resources, and I would, as you can tell, heavily emphasize the information technology resources. Padmore: One that I would add would be delivering on our promises. When we recruit undergraduates, we recruit them with the hope that they will graduate in 4 years, maybe 5 years; but we should not recruit them with the expectation that 50 percent of them or 25 percent of them may not make it through the pipeline. It's wrong. Williams: So accountability, and for lack of a better term, a contractual understanding with the student. Padmore: Yes. Cornwell Rumsey: I think that the strategy has to be well focused and developed with the customer in mind, and I would define mathematics and science at the front end of the spectrum. I think that is essential. Once we do that, we will be able to, through the process, ask ourselves how we are doing, and if we are not meeting the mark, step back and readjust. Second, I suggest that the strategy should include the entire family. If you are going to train a child, you must train the entire child, recognizing that a lot of the values and the principles that are instilled are instilled at home. And if you have a situation where you have babies raising babies, then you are missing that very important component. Gerber: I would say that every family, community, and school ought to have as its goal that all children know themselves as successful learners by the time they are in the second grade. They ought to know that by the joy of learning. They ought to know it by the fact that they learned to read. Williams: I agree with everything you, Jaime, and Terry have indicated about goals for the near term. Just to pursue the issue further, are you describing contemporary America? I understand what you are speaking to in terms of goals, but when I say that this enterprise needs a different kind of problem solver, I am speaking in terms of extant realities. My preferences notwithstanding, the substantial fraction of American students do not come from 1930-model homes. The large percentage of minority youngsters do not even come from 1950-model homes. There is nothing that I am aware of in the near term that suggests that it is going to be substantially revised. Therefore, the student body that presents itself to American schools is exactly what it is. In terms of addressing it, the problem-solving construct has to deal with what is, not the historic glorious past that might have been historic but was not glorious. I am not one of the people who spends a lot of time lamenting what was lost by time. But the point is, that is the reality. So Jaime, you are right about values, reincarnation of values. You are right about everything you have said. I just want to reiterate: The job is a different one. I can not do my grandparents' lifestyle. This even bears on how you can actually deal with technology--your point, Jim--making the technology generally available to youngsters. But in many cases, it is going to be youngsters without parental supervision. How do you make it work under those conditions--the real conditions, not the ones we would prefer, not the ones we romanticize about? Powell: I think the catch is to have high standards and increase graduation rates, because most people think that if you raise standards, fewer people meet the standards. Somehow, we have to raise them and make more people meet them, and, of course, that is very easy to say in half a sentence but extremely difficult to bring about. I would like to think that if we brought all the resources that we have to bear on this, it could be done. We just set policy, Luther. It is up to you to implement it. Williams: I want to raise a few issues about the undergraduate sector. As you know, NSF and other agencies have major programming in that arena. It is an area that obviously we are very concerned with. But there is a view that, as is true with the K-12 sector, it also is antiquated. It could benefit from an overhaul, systemic or otherwise. If, in fact, Lynette, you are going to have the kind of returns you are describing, should we be talking about reform of K-16, as opposed to K-12, education and having a system work, the entire system work, in the case of minorities? The issue is that there are pockets of excellence. There are areas where it is working. In the suburbs, it is working. Why does it work in the suburbs and not in the urban schools? Is it high expectations? I expect it might be; not only do we have to bring the technology in, but from what I have seen, we also have to educate the teachers to increase their expectations. You see it when you go to a school board meeting. They bring graph after graph that segments the minority students and they have an "oh, well" mentality that they are performing below standards. There is no accountability for raising their levels, and the number of deficit programs and the dollars that they get perpetuates that low expectation. I would like to see more of a collaborative effort and a discussion of what we need for college graduates and what we need for the students to be prepared. Oaxaca: I think with the infrastructure that has now been set up for 4 1/2 years, that we now have to follow the precepts of total quality management: continuous product improvement and eliminationi of the non-value-added processes. It has to be process driven. The world is not a snapshot. It is always changing. You are going to have to have a dynamic process that you can keep adjusting to the changes that occur, and it is a real-time problem. So you will fall behind in certain areas and you will get ahead in others. Williams: If I might editorialize, I agree with everything you have said, Jaime, but I would make one additional contrast between suburban and inner-city schools. In the inner-city schools, and especially at the elementary level, basically nothing is expected of the students. There is almost uniformity in terms of performance, resources notwithstanding. Gerber: Kids are growing up knowing how to program VCR's but not being nurtured in ways that have them feel that they are whole people and that they are people who are connected to the promise of our society. If we are talking about partnerships, Luther, with Commerce or others, we have to connect these kids to the larger promise of our society, or all of our techniques for teaching them to do things aren't going to mean anything. That is a larger agenda that is in the national interest and calls for real leadership from general government people at the local, the State, and the national level. I think they ought to speak to that and find credible pathways for kids. The kids have good crap detectors and they know when the speeches do not have any substance behind them, and the "you can be anything you want to be" speech doesn't ring true to a lot of kids in our society. They learn to think critically at least that well, and we have to be accountable for the fact that we are not fulfilling our own promise in that way, as one of my colleagues has said. Williams: Good. One of the things I am attempting to do as we move through this discussion is to arrive at some end point, so I want to probe another issue that I raised with you. What is the next definitive step? Let me give you an example of what I mean. It's remarkable but perfectly understandable that after 3 years of national conferences where NSF brings together more than 300 talented young minority students from various sectors who spend several days in Washington exhibiting their accomplishments, that these transactions have been devoid of any serious participation by the media. The extent to which that is the case, I would argue, represents a major impediment to making progress, even in mathematics and science education, forgetting the challenge that is contained in the larger issue that Peter framed of how to actually produce young people who feel a sense of belonging and a sense of participation, who feel that they can actually grow up and join this adult American society. Your reaction? Cornwell Rumsey: I would like to see us recognize and celebrate success in mathematics and sciences throughout the learning continuum, on par with how we lift up and celebrate athletics in society. Williams: Anyone who has in recent times examined the issue--it is not inconsequential that even the U.S. Congress, in spite of its otherwise busy schedule, has given some time to the state of the baseball strike--has to be challenged to move this issue as close as possible to similar placement. Oaxaca: It is a slow-moving thing. There are a lot of people who, because the United States has always been preeminent in research and development, assume that there is no problem. It doesn't sell newspapers. I think it falls under the category of what our chief scientist at Northrop used to say. He used to ask the question, "Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?" The answer was, "I don't know and I don't care." That is how the majority of the American public views this, because it is never really surfaced as a drop-dead problem. Unfortunately, the United States only reacts to a crisis that is right at our doorstep, and this is a long-term thing--it takes 28 years to grow a Ph.D. I have a theory that if you can do mathematics and science, you will learn how to read, but not the other way around. Williams: Or if you can read and you cannot do mathematics and science, it probably doesn't matter that you can read. Padmore: I think we have to realize that educating a child is the responsibility of all of us. It doesn't end with the parents, and the parents should not assume that their responsibility ends at 8:00 in the morning and then picks up again at 6:00 in the evening. It is a continuous process, and the same thing for teachers and faculty. It has to be a continuous thing. We have to be sensitive to what is affecting learning. If we have a young man or a young woman who is working 40 hours per week and coming into classrooms and falling asleep, we should be sensitive enough to investigate that process. So it has to be a holistic approach, and unless it is that, we are wasting our time. Williams: Are there issues that we have already mentioned that you would like to speak to further, or issues we have not raised? Powell: I would like to make one comment to try to sum up my thoughts. When I come to this conference and when I go back to the great museum where I work, I know at a very deep level that the problem is not with the kids (and by that, I now include all the way up through graduate school). The reason they are not always able to do it is someone else's fault. It is the system. It is us. So I believe that if enough political will were raised to a high enough level and focused sharply enough, this is a tractable problem. I do not believe that it is impossible, difficult as this is, to bring about what you are talking about. It could be done. Cornwell Rumsey: If I had to sum up my feelings about where we are now, I would say that the time is right, the conditions are right, and if we can not make real progress now, shame on all of us. Oaxaca: I am prepared to go another 40 years. Gerber: I am not sure that the time is completely right. I think that there's very deep-seated racism in America that thwarts individuals and policies and programs. We wouldn't all be as frustrated as we are and we wouldn't be in such recursive cycles of invention if that were not the case. I think that a lot of kids actually have to save themselves. It may not be their fault, but it falls to them to pull themselves up, unfortunately, and society can join with those kids. I really think that there is not yet a sense of the urgency in the country for raising standards for all kids, for holding the adults who are dealing with these kids accountable for the kids' success. I think that the national leadership doesn't want to make people uncomfortable by making that point, and I think they are going to have to do it. I think that we are going to have to, as a profession, at least in education in my area, look at ourselves more sharply, and I think that one way that we'll do that is by other folks coming in and looking at us. The kinds of things that NSF is sponsoring, talking about systemic change, also cause us to reflect on things. So we need to be supportive and we need to be patted on the back for trying, but I think we have to recognize that we are a long, long way from truly helping kids achieve what they need to achieve, which is to be learners. Jaime was saying that valuing education, valuing ourselves as learners--and the belief that in doing so, one will have an equal shot with everybody else for the rewards that our society strews all around us and puts on the television--is just out of reach of some segments of our society. Williams: Perhaps at this point we will see if there are questions from the audience. AUDIENCE COMMENTS Question: I am a middle school teacher in Baltimore. I would like to know why NSF will fund certain things and then just cut them off after three years or so, especially programs that are helping to fill the gap of what the teachers can not do in the classroom due to the overwhelming number of kids. I have also heard of people not receiving the funding. Why? What does NSF need to do to keep the flag flying? Williams: Why did NSF make those decisions? Most of them were made before we actually decided to seriously problem solve. That has already been spoken about. We decided to move to systemic approaches if projects are in the same community. For example, if we were funding some highly fragmented, episodic (and in my judgment, trivial, though important to one or two or five teachers) ventures, we ceased to fund them and pulled everything together in one coherent problem-solving domain. I know that is disconcerting to some individuals, but I try to keep focused on the customer, and the customer is the student. If the students are profiting but the college professor is annoyed because he or she did not get the grant, then that is secondary to the problem solving. Why three years? The answer is probably the same. We were in the business of making grants, not problem solving. I assure you now we are in the business of problem solving, so that kind of experience should be minimal in the future. Question: The second part is since you are in the business of making grants, I think it would be fair of your section to have a standard requirement regarding equipment or apparatus or materials that should be in every school for the kids to work with, along with that grant. Thank you. Williams: And we intend to do that, again, by having the equipment, as you heard here today, be a part of a larger set of issues. The equipment alone is absolutely unimportant. Staff and professional development without the equipment, without high standards, are absolutely unimportant in NSF's view. In summary, the point is that NSF is making a transition from taking a problem set that has 10 variables and naming each one of the variables a program, operating those in isolation and assuming that we are accomplishing something because we have a large number of grantees. The issue is not the number of grantees. The issue is the number of students who are afforded the opportunity to have challenging and quality-based education. Question: I am with the California Academic Partnership Program, and, more important, I am a school teacher in science. I am very interested in the issue of technology versus goals and standards, because neither one will work without the other. The reason I have seen so many computers locked up in classrooms is because there has not been the technical support. Have you considered tying to grants that give equipment the requirement for technical support in the classroom? Williams: Yes. Actually we are considering that in a very active fashion. In fact, we are considering the following. Making provisions for grant support is probably only 50 percent of our task. After we make the grants, do we not have an obligation to provide technical assistance to the individuals we have asked to actually implement the program? So we are beginning to move into what I call the second phase of our business, and we can not do that in isolation. This is a perfect opportunity to make this a multipartner enterprise because there are local industries, local businesses, private foundations, and a whole host of individuals who could come together and assist us in what I call part two of the process. Question: First of all, I applaud you on this discussion. I think it has been one of the most useful ones that I have heard in a while. I think that we would agree it has always taken a community to raise a child, and so my question is whether you think it is reasonable that there should be a children's bill of rights, that a child should have a quiet place to study at night, that they should have access to day care, so that the children can come to school equally prepared or equally able to be prepared. Oaxaca: I do not think there should be a children's bill of rights. I think the Bill of Rights is there for all Americans. I think that would only create a big police force to make sure it was enforced, which would create another bureaucracy that would then set up foolish rules. My colleague here said it is a joint problem: It is parents, teachers, government, corporate America, academia. If we as a people fail in accomplishing this, the country goes down the toilet, so we all have a vested interest. We have to get everybody pointed in the right direction, because for a variety of reasons that have been discussed here, it has not happened yet. I think any bureaucratic rules that would set up that sort of thing take away the responsibility from those who should have it to start with--the parents and the schools and that system. We are going into the 21st century. The politics are right. We seem to be able to reallocate our resources in a better fashion now so we don't have to put as much money into defense, and we can now put money into economic stability and social progress. Question: I'm wondering why the standards apply to the students, when it was even specifically stated that faculty are too busy to take the responsibility of making sure students get through school. The reason I ask this is that there are a lot of people taking NSF money to do research, and I am always surprised when I come here how few of those academicians are here participating and taking these sorts of things seriously. What is NSF doing to ensure that those schools are represented here, and that those people (faculty) are doing their job? I think it is a multifaceted problem, and just doing research isn't good enough. I am wondering why those standards are being allowed to propagate. Williams: Well, part of it is that you are looking at NSF, as Dr. Powell indicated, growing out of a period of imbalance, when the research enterprise was robust and the education enterprise was very modest. That situation has been revised, which we are all pleased with, but there clearly are two strong foci within the agency. What is needed is a set of activities that would more effectively integrate education and research, and we are beginning to make some progress in that arena. For example, the Faculty Early Career Development Award, which now provides the opportunity (I think for the first time in the history of NSF) for a scientist or an engineer to make an application to NSF requesting a bipolar award. "Here's my discrete research program and here's the educational program, in one transaction." In other words, it is the kind of proposal that should be submitted by members of the professorate, not researchers. So that is a beginning step in the right direction. Question: While I applaud your ideas and thoughts on this greater issue, there is one thing I have to ask of you. Let me preface by saying that I have friends who have been teaching at various levels of education longer than I have been alive--high school teachers, administrators, etc.--and the one thing I have found out from them is, even at the level of the district school board, the members are really not aware of what is going on in the classroom on a day-to-day basis. While Mr. Clinton can postulate what should happen, once again, there is a disconnect between reality and concept. I would like to know what NSF or any of the other members here are doing to make sure that the good intentions for which the money is targeted are indeed occurring at that level of education. Williams: Well, it is being pursued in various modes. At NSF, the strategy we are using, and about which we are most hopeful, is the systemic effort, because that makes every player participate. As Peter and others have observed, it is impossible for superintendents, or chief State school officers, or the school board, or parents to be other than integral players in the venture, because we--to be blunt--won't do business without them. That is the way to get at that problem. If all the members of the community will not unite in a comprehensive effort to address the needs of the students, then there will be no program. There are other examples in other sectors. CLOSING COMMENTS We have to end this panel discussion. I would like to express appreciation to the panelists, many of whom were assembled on short notice. Peter Gerber noted that most members of Congress are committed this afternoon to debating the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a very important activity, and they would not leave before the vote. This group of talented people was able to come forward and serve, which I think bodes well for the enterprise in terms of the question I raised about whether we actually have the requisite talent. I am more encouraged than I was before you performed. Thank you very much. LUNCHEON FORUM PRESIDER James L. Powell President and CEO Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jim Powell. I am president and director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and also chair of the Education and Human Resources Committee of the National Science Board. It is my pleasure to join you for this luncheon and to welcome you and to preside over it. I am very pleased to introduce our speaker, Clifton Poodry, with whom I have really enjoyed chatting as we sat up here together. He grew up on the Tonawanda Seneca Indian Reservation in western New York and then moved a short distance away to SUNY Buffalo to receive his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He then went on to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland to receive his doctorate in biology. Most of his career since has been spent at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he moved through the faculty ranks to receive tenure and become professor of biology, chair of his department, dean of natural sciences, and acting associate vice chancellor of the university. Along the way, he also served as a program officer of the National Science Foundation. The talent spotters here in Washington, D.C., noting this steady rise through academic positions, have recruited him, and he is now serving as director of the Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE), National Institute of General Medical Services at the National Institutes of Health. Along the way to receiving tenure and becoming a full professor at Santa Cruz, as you would suspect, you have to get research grants, do research, have undergraduate students, send them on to graduate school and out the doctorate door. He has done that. He has received grants from NSF, from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the American Cancer Society, and others. He's written many papers and he's served on a number of important scientific and educational panels. It is my pleasure to ask you to welcome Dr. Clifton Poodry. KEYNOTE ADDRESS Clifton A. Poodry Director Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) National Institute of General Medical Services National Institutes of Health I would like to thank Dr. Williams for the invitation to speak at this luncheon and Dr. Powell for the kind introduction. First, I want to say that these are exciting times to be a scientist and a teacher. Second, I want to emphasize that minorities not only deserve to be a part of this excitement, but we had better be for our own good! Third, I will share ideas on at least one thing that needs to change in order to get more minorities involved. As I said, these are exciting times to be a scientist and a teacher. In what seems to have been a blink of an eye, the research in my area, developmental genetics, has moved in great leaps. Topics that were imponderable 20 years ago, unanswerable questions suitable for Ph.D. qualifying exams, are now being approached and solved using new technology. Cloning important genes, sequencing messages and control regions, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect and amplify extremely rare sequences were either fantasy or beyond our imagination just 25 years ago. Basic science--curiosity pursued to give us basic understandings of nature--has provided the underpinnings for amazing advancements in applied research. The first figure (see printed report) shows a little history of the studies leading to the development of PCR and some of its applications. As you can see, the applications that we now enjoy from that basic research are important to our well-being in many ways: health, food, economic development, and new basic research. The second figure (see printed report) shows another history lesson in the research that led to discoveries on the basis of Lou Gehrig's disease. As you can see, the products of research in genetics, molecular biology, and chemistry converge to lead to potential clinical applications. Yes, it is an exciting time to be a scientist and a teacher. Shouldn't minorities be sharing in the excitement? Of course they should. Shouldn't minorities be helping to direct priorities for research, including research to solve problems that disproportionately affect our communities? Of course they should. It goes without saying. What will it take to get underrepresented minorities less underrepresented in science, math, and engineering? I could cite the depressing statistics of how far we have to go or I could list the programs and the national efforts that are underway to address the problem. I could tell you how programs at NIH are going to address the problem. But I prefer to focus on more personal than programmatic aspects of the issues and share my own ideas on what needs to change at a personal, individual level. Discovery is fun. It is motivating. Most of you already know that and that is why you are here. From my own experience I also know the importance of internal drive. I was an "underwhelming," "underperforming" student as an undergraduate. My overall average was a C; not a high C, just a C. I was so naive that I thought a C was okay. I had a job interview at the end of my senior year for a position as a technician in a nuclear recycling plant--a veritable Homer Simpson! I didn't get the job. . . . Homer got it. So what do you do when you don't get the job? I went to graduate school--to get a master's in biology so I could teach high school and, hopefully, coach football. Events during graduate research changed my direction. I recall my thoughts late one night walking home from the lab where I was working on my project for a master's thesis--on how a newt sheds its skin. It was a cold night in winter in Buffalo, but I was completely oblivious to the weather. I was warm from the glow of discovery. I had just thought of a way to get a series of timed samples after a hormone treatment from the same animal. No one else to my knowledge had ever done it that way. I was darn near giddy. The feelings of euphoria at seeing new things or thinking new thoughts kept me going. I applied to Ph.D. programs and took the GRE. When I scored in the 98th and 99th percentile I was sure there was a mistake. I went to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland (the home of Congressman Stokes). A couple of years into my Ph.D. research I knew, from my own observations, that the structure of imaginal discs of Drosophila was not as it had been recently described in the literature--and that the interpretation made a difference! It was important. How we thought of pattern formation and cellular communication now made more sense. "Wow! This is heady stuff. It might actually get published." The next several months, as the manuscript went through 10 revisions, were hard work. But let me tell you that the feeling that you get when you put your first manuscript in the mailbox to send it off for publication is incomparable. I had three extra copies in case the manuscript got lost in the mail. For weeks I was beside myself with excitement. I would check the library for the latest journals, worrying, wondering if someone else had made similar observations, wondering whether I'd be scooped before our paper came out. The published paper was 44 pages long with many figures. The process and the reception of the final product reinforced for me the pride in my work and the value of hard work. My paper would stand the test of time. I learned from my pleasures in research the value of patience, for gratification in research is often delayed. Not every idea pans out. Not every experiment works. But preparation pays. A thorough knowledge of the literature, an experiment or analysis that is just that much more precise than those done previously, the patience and determination, they can pay off with new insights, new observations, or new revelations that no one else has ever had before--and that is a kick in the pants! It is well worth the work involved. Whether we consider an activity WORK is a state of mind. My friend--scientist, teacher, and textbook author Vernon Avila--told of how as a youngster he had to work on the family farm, often digging and clearing irrigation ditches to keep water flowing to the crops. It was work, hard work. And after work he and his friends would play war. They would build forts and dig trenches. Dig ditches! But this time it was play; not work, just hard play. He realized at an early age that it is not the activity itself but whether or not you are following your own direction that makes something work or play. Speaking of effort, I want to share with you a story that involves effort and a man's refusal to adopt a victim mentality. Ely S. Parker was an exceptional man from my reservation who, in the middle of the last century, got an education and eventually a law degree. But he was not allowed to take the Bar exam to practice law--because he was not a U.S. citizen. Do you know when American Indians were granted citizenship? It was not until 1924, when my mother was a young girl. What would you do if, after investing all your time and resources in your education, you were not allowed even to take the certification exam? Ely Parker, not knowing that Indians were supposed to be right-brain, nonquantitative thinkers, went back to the drawing board and became an engineer, the first American Indian engineer. Among his many accomplishments, he helped build the Erie Canal and worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. He served with Grant in the Civil War. Ely Parker penned the terms of surrender at Appomattox. I wonder if I would have had his resolve. I wonder what pushed him forward. Almost as much fun as discovering something yourself is to watch your students have the discovery experience. It is akin to being a proud parent to see your students grow and mature and to share the joy and excitement. Teaching is an endeavor that provides great satisfaction but, as with research, gratification is often delayed. Yet the impact of the phone calls or letters from grateful students, generally a few and sometimes 10 years after the fact, thanking you for something that you do as a normal part of your profession, is tremendous. I know I have been moved by letters from students long forgotten and as a result have redoubled my resolve to be an even better teacher and mentor. It is worth the effort. Another thing that I have learned along the way is that long lunch speeches are not desirable. Brevity is appreciated. So I want to conclude with two things that I have learned about learning. (When an audience thinks that you are about to conclude they wake up. So I have just told you I am concluding so you'll wake up and pay attention. My mentor used to do this about every 10 minutes in a 1-hour talk. I learned it from him.) The main reason we are here today is that there are too few minorities in science and engineering. I am particularly concerned about those who are lost from the pipeline, denied the opportunity before they ever had a chance to know whether science, math, or engineering was a possible career choice for them. I attribute this condition, at least in part, to myths. Myths in education about the potential of members of minority groups have certainly been responsible for closing the doors to otherwise capable people. I want to comment on what I believe is one of the most damaging myths. It is damaging because so many people have bought into it--parents, children, teachers, you and I. It is as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and them is us." Why is your child getting C's and D's in math? "Johnny just doesn't have an aptitude for math. He's more artistically inclined." Why are you getting C's in math and science? "I am not good in math. I am not an egghead; I am a people person." Why are these students not signed up for algebra and a college prep science class? "It is commonly known that minorities are right-brain thinkers. They will be better off taking a course in practical math and vocational training." What is the myth that I am referring to? It is that natural aptitude, more than effort, is the primary determinant in how well one will do in science or math or in jobs where inquiry and quantitative skills are needed. Do they still give aptitude tests? I remember that my advisor said that I should be a forest ranger in a fire observation tower. That was because I was very shy and was uncomfortable speaking to people. So I ended up being a professor. I will not deny that there is a continuum in native abilities. Not everyone has the natural talent to become a professional basketball player, baseball player, or an Olympic medalist. But that pinnacle aside, many people, if not most, have the abilities to enjoy sports, many at a competitive level. One of my proudest accomplishments is having been a third-string football player in college under coach Buddy Ryan. I made it up to second string and even had a partial scholarship by my senior year. Would it be reasonable for everyone not destined to the professional leagues to shun physical activity? Should only potential professional artists learn to play musical instruments or enjoy photography or other art forms? Of course not. Learning, whether mostly physical or mostly mental, takes time. It takes effort. Depending on the state of mind, that effort may be work or it may be play. The notion that aptitude is more important than effort is not universal, however. When Asian parents were asked similar questions about their children's performance, what do you suppose they said? Their response was that the children hadn't put in enough effort. I suspect that if we discard the myth of aptitude and instead believe that all children can learn, if we have high expectations, if we provide more opportunities for them to discover, to learn for themselves, to get reinforcement for actual learning and to experience the joy of feeling successful at learning (nothing succeeds like success), they will learn that learning is worth the effort. It will take a broad effort that will necessarily involve parents, community members, teachers, administrators, and scientists. It will be worth our effort. My Hopi brother and friend Frank Dukepoo encourages students in the Native American Honor Society to strive for a 4.0. In asking youngsters to set real objectives for themselves he relates that people often say, "I would like to get straight A's." Or "Gee, I would like to play the piano like Mary." What they mean is, "I would like to get straight A's without studying" or "I would like to play the piano without having to practice every day." What do you really want to achieve? And what are you going to give up so you have time to do it? Will you put in the effort? Being a scientist has offered me many challenges as well as many exciting opportunities to be my own boss, to follow my own curiosity, to stretch my imagination, to test my technical skills, and to hold my ideas and interpretations up to any and all for examination. It now offers me, in my position at NIH, an opportunity to put my creativity to work in support of ways to extend those opportunities to groups that have historically been outside of the scientific establishment. I am hopeful that, with the leadership of the National Science Foundation, systemic educational reform will occur in our communities, that new partnerships will develop to foster the inclusion of minorities in the science and engineering workforce. With your effort, a broader spectrum of Americans will enjoy the fruits of a good education so that a subset, with representation not limited to any particular group, will aspire to the challenges and rewards of being a scientist, perhaps a professor, or maybe even an administrator. AWARDS LUNCHEON PRESIDER Diana Garcia Prichard Research Scientist Eastman Kodak Company I would like to take this time to introduce our speaker. Generally, the speakers that the National Science Foundation presents at the Diversity conference have a curriculum vita much longer than their speeches. Therefore, I'm going to select just a few things to say about our speaker. She is presently the general superintendent of schools in Chicago. This is the third-largest school system in the country with an enrollment of 411,000 and a staff of more than 45,000. She is also a doctoral candidate in educational administration at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received a master of science degree in science education from Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York, and a master of science degree in supervision and administration from Baruch College, City University of New York. Ms. Johnson has a bachelor of science in biology, with a chemistry minor, from Johnson C. Smith College, Charlotte, North Carolina. Before coming to Chicago, Ms. Johnson held numerous positions in the New York City school system, serving as a teacher, principal, deputy community superintendent, and deputy chancellor for instruction. She has been a guest speaker at numerous education association events and a guest lecturer. One of the most interesting aspects of Argie K. Johnson's career is that she was a research biochemist for the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, for 6 years. She has been the recipient of many leadership, educational, and community service awards. I will just mention a few: a citation in the Congressional Record; Outstanding Achievement Award from the NAACP; Educator of the Year, Association of Black School Educators of New York; Leadership in Education Award; Super Principal Award. She is affiliated with the National Council of Negro Women, National Alliance of Black School Educators, Phi Delta Kappa Honor Society, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Argie Johnson has had an illustrative career in education. I would like to welcome her now. KEYNOTE ADDRESS Argie K. Johnson General Superintendent Chicago Public Schools Never before in time has there been such a diversity of ethnic, cultural, language, and religious minorities in our Nation's schools. It is estimated that within the next 6 years--by the year 2000--one-third of the Nation's school children will be ethnic minorities. In the city of Chicago, our public schools are currently more than 80 percent minority, with more than 100 non-English languages spoken by our students. The phenomenon is not unique to Chicago. It is played out in urban areas across the country. In metropolitan areas, the average percentage of students who are African American or Hispanic was 53 percent in 1991, compared to 20 percent outside the central city of metropolitan areas and 26 percent in nonmetropolitan areas. With the ethnic and racial diversity of our student body growing more evident each year, what are the major issues facing our society and our school systems as we work to educate youth for the 21st century? They are the issues of equity of educational resources regardless of economic class, race and ethnicity, gender, or special needs. Additionally, there is the issue of the process of school reform in the context of national standards that must be raised. Where then do the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and those who have physical and emotional challenges fit in the school systems of the United States? And what do these students and their families want from our schools? They want nothing more than what is promised in the State constitutions that outline the processes and procedures for producing a literate citizenry. Today, a literate citizenry must be able to address the issues surrounding science and technology in our society. These families must be encouraged to take their rightful place, to take full advantage of what our schools can offer. The best education for some is the best education for all. Why science and math? They provide training and ways of thinking and processing information that are the skills necessary to master other academic content material. Where are we now with respect to the education of the poor, minorities, women, and those with special needs in terms of providing entry into the scientific and technological workplace? How have national standards movements helped this process to move forward? Is school reform making a difference? Are defining national standards and raising requirements for student achievement contrary to reform? Data from the National Center for Education Statistics have provided a comprehensive analysis of the condition of education and a means to support conclusions about where progress is being made in education as well as where it is not. We can examine how much progress has been made in the areas we previously discussed: o How do children from low-income families progress through the educational system in comparison to their high-income counterparts? - Children from low-income families are less likely to be enrolled in prekindergarten programs than high-income children. - First graders from low-income families are twice as likely to be age 7 in 1st grade rather than age 6. - As poor children progress through elementary school, they are more likely to be above the typical age for their grade, increasing from 9 percent in 1st grade to 19 percent in 4th grade to 30 percent in 7th grade. - Nationally, 11 percent of high school students from low-income families drop out of school compared to 1 percent for high-income families. This statistic does not speak to the enormous dropout rate in urban school districts where the poor are concentrated. There you can find dropout rates from 50 percent to 75 percent. These children are the natural resources of the gang culture. - Among students who do graduate from high school, only 40 percent from low-income families enroll in college compared to 78 percent from high-income families. These indicators suggest that children from poor families progress more slowly and not as far through the educational system as those from high-income families. o Do students who are from low-income families and who leave the education system make a smooth transition to the workforce? - Among high school graduates who did not enroll in college, those from low-income families were less likely to be employed than those from high-income families (49 percent compared to 73 percent). Dropouts were even less likely to be employed. These young adults are the natural resources of the welfare system. - Data clearly show that African American high school graduates continue to lag behind whites in terms of employment, but even more tragic is the fact that, on average, white dropouts are more readily employed than African American high school graduates! - Statistics clearly show that educational attainment has a positive impact on earning power in males, regardless of age, but African Americans continue to trail behind whites in earning power, regardless of educational attainment. - Data for females is more encouraging, with educated females earning considerably above the average for high school graduates. Keep in mind, though, that the baseline salary is lower for females than it is for males. o How are racial and ethnic minorities doing as reported in The Condition of Education 1993? - While national trends for the enrollment of 3- to 4-year-olds into prekindergarten programs have increased, the increase was larger for whites than for African Americans and Hispanics. - The percentage of African American high school graduates going directly to college rose 8 percentage points between 1974 and 1990. During the same period, the enrollment rate for whites rose 14 percentage points. - In 1990, African Americans and Hispanics were about equally likely to go directly to college, but both were less likely to do so than whites. - Although overall scores have not changed much over 2 decades, the National Assessment of Educational Progress gives evidence that the large gap in achievement between whites and minorities has narrowed substantially. African Americans and Hispanics have improved relative to whites in reading, mathematics, and science, although the improvement among Hispanics was less significant. - Public schools with few disadvantaged youth were more likely to have programs for exceptional children, diagnostic services, and extended day program offerings in their schools than public schools with a high level of student poverty. As the bumblebee wings its way among the flowers on a warm summer day, despite aerodynamic principles proclaiming that it can't be done, so do unrecognized citizens with physical disabilities go about their daily lives achieving what most of us would consider impossible. Despite knowing what can be achieved by people with disabilities, their representation in the scientific and technological workforce is dismally low. Even with Federal legislation such as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, we are painfully slow at giving access, not only to buildings, buses, water fountains, telephones, and washroom facilities, but also to things that really matter--educational programs and job opportunities at the highest levels. o How are our female students achieving these days? - An increasing number of girls are reported as having taken high school chemistry and physics classes. - The average proficiency of females taking high school science increased significantly from 1986 to 1992, whereas achievement of their male counterparts remained fairly constant. - While males and females have similar proficiency in mathematics in early adolescence, a persistent gap develops in high school. While there is an overall decrease in performance in mathematics between the genders, the performance gap between male and female 17-year-olds appears to narrow only slightly. - Despite all the efforts of the feminist movement, research into gender equity continues to show females remain underrepresented at the highest levels of management, commerce, science, technology, industry, and higher education. The only area in which women consistently outperform men is in childbearing! The disparities between males and females, and among racial and ethnic groups, continue as these students pursue advanced scientific and technological education and enter careers. - Of the 38,814 doctorates earned in the United States in 1992, 37 percent were earned by women. - Of the 19,043 doctorates earned in the United States in the fields of science and technology, only 24 percent were earned by women. - Recent statistics show that 83 percent of the doctorates earned by U.S. citizens and those with permanent visas in scientific and technological fields are earned by whites. Asians are far behind with 10 percent. Other minorities trail them. - Of the 19,000 doctorates earned in 1992 in the fields associated with science and technology, only 201 went to African Americans, 317 were awarded to Hispanics and a mere 47 went to Native Americans. The challenge to today's schools in particular and to American society in general is to examine ways in which we can parlay this valuable resource of ethnic diversity and talent into fuel for our economic engine so that all citizens can realize the American Dream. o If education indeed empowers the citizenry, let us take a look at exactly which groups are maximizing educational opportunities in the United States in the areas of science and technology. - The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a great disparity in the employment of African Americans and Hispanics in various fields of science. - While women fare much better, many of them are employed in the health care industry in low-paying jobs, such as nurses aides and licensed practical nurses. Few are represented in engineering and precision industries. o What about the earning power of these graduates? - In the areas of computer science and engineering, the median salary for college graduates far exceeds that of graduates in other fields. Yet, minorities and women continue to be underrepresented in these high-paying positions. As school districts grapple with the issue of setting high standards for their students in response to legislation--for example, in Goals 2000 Educate America--urban educators are constantly barraged with naysayers who believe that high standards will increase the already alarming dropout rate. Are we raising the bar too high? Research by Angus and Miriel at the University of Michigan and Northern Illinois University, respectively, shows that since A Nation at Risk, enrollment rates in both science and mathematics courses have increased. Even more telling is that these increases were in traditional academic courses: biology, chemistry, physics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and advanced mathematics. Moreover, enrollment rates in general science courses seem to be on the wane. Changing high school graduation requirements, more rigorous college admission requirements, reform efforts to achieve scientific literacy among the general populace, and efforts to increase the pool of potential scientists and engineers, including minorities and women, have all contributed to this upward trend in numbers and to the kinds of courses students are taking. This trend was confirmed by the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, which shows that mathematics and science achievement among students aged 9 to 17 generally improved after a period of decline during the previous decade. This comforting statistic has to be tempered with others, which show our children well behind other nations in science and mathematics achievement. The authors of Rhetoric and Reality: The American High School Curriculum, 1945-1990 found that African American and Hispanic students who increased their academic course load showed an increase in SAT scores. African Americans taking more rigorous courses also registered a decline in their dropout rate. Assisted by the National Science Foundation and fueled by the national standards movements of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Research Council, the scientific and mathematical needs of all children are being given great attention. The urban centers of this country are where you find a concentration of the poor, minorities, and the disabled. If any progress in education is to be made with these groups, concentrated, sustained, and systemic reform efforts must be made in order to bring about change. The State and urban systemic initiatives funded by the National Science Foundation will serve as the catalyst for the reform of science, mathematics, and technological education. How can we attain educational parity with other nations? How can the United States become first in the world in science and mathematics? May I suggest the following: o Adopting the National Science Foundation Urban Systemic Initiative Goals in all school districts: - To provide the scientific and mathematical literacy of all students; - To provide the mathematics and science fundamentals that will permit all students to participate in a technological society; and - To enable a significantly greater number of students to pursue careers in mathematics, science, engineering, and technology. o Embarking on a course of systemic change that includes, but is not limited to, the following: - Building and sustaining a positive climate for change in mathematics, science, and technology education; - Designing, implementing, and institutionalizing a comprehensive program for improved student instruction, professional development, and community education that ensures high quality mathematics, science, and technology education for all students; - Advancing policy frameworks that ensure a rich, demanding, and rigorous curriculum of academic subjects; - Raising expectations and graduation requirements to reflect the skills students will need to be successful in a technological society; - Improving infrastructures (organizational, physical, and technological); - Aligning the resources necessary to support high-quality mathematics, science, and technology education for all students; - Reducing and closing the academic achievement gap between whites and nonwhites and between the urban child and the suburban child with respect to State and national norms in mathematics and science by establishing high standards and attainable benchmarks; - Changing belief systems with respect to the learning abilities of all children; - Examining our administrative practices and changing them in accordance with best practices in management. The technical skills of a nation's workers are a critical component of its economic competitiveness. The youth of today will be tomorrow's workers and will be competing in a global marketplace. They will depend on the mathematics, science, and technology learned in this decade. Their ability to succeed after the turn of the century is largely dependent upon what we do now to prepare them. Let us make a concerted effort toward celebrating our diversity instead of defining our differences. The whole world marvels at the great American experiment of a heterogeneous society. There is no doubt that, due to our short history, we are making up the rules of American society as we go along. We have made mistakes, to be sure, but there is no mistake that America's diversity is an asset and not a liability, and that her greatness will continue to depend on the contributions made by all citizens without regard to gender, race, income level, or ethnicity. We cannot expect anyone to contribute to society unless he or she is prepared. Schools are the place where this preparation has to take place. If America can dedicate a decade to developing the finest defense systems that money can buy, what precludes it from doing the same with education? What holds America back from investing in the education of its citizens? I suggest to you that an educated citizenry is a very powerful weapon. My sincere congratulations are extended to those of you who will receive awards today. Your accomplishments are a testament to what can be achieved by those who overcome obstacles, put on blinders to distractions, and participate fully in the American educational process. Your task, however, is not complete. By earning recognition, you also take on the greater burden of serving as mentors to those who will follow you. I urge you to accept the challenge. We who work in schools every day need your help, good will, and splendid example as role models. There are too few of you achieving at this level, so the burden is even greater. I hope that you will accept this challenge in the spirit of this significant lyric: The road is long, with many a winding turn; Which leads to who knows where, who knows where? But I'm strong, strong enough to carry him; He ain't heavy--he's my brother. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to address you. AWARD PRESENTATIONS PRESIDER Diana Garcia Prichard Research Scientist Eastman Kodak Company An integral part of the National Science Foundation's National Conference on Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce has been the presentation of awards to outstanding students, researchers, and leaders in the field of science, engineering, mathematics, and technology education for minority groups underrepresented in these fields. This third year of the conference we continue this tradition. More than 300 student participants in NSF-sponsored research activities have presented their findings here in panel and poster settings. The disciplines represented include chemistry, physics, engineering, biology, and the social sciences. Students entered the research competition by submitting a formal research paper based on their conference presentations. Papers were reviewed by NSF research scientists and science educators, and finalists were selected in three categories: precollege, undergraduate, and graduate. The National Science Foundation staff judges attended the presentations of all the finalists, and winners have been selected. Before we present the awards, we would like to formally recognize the many NSF scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and science educators who volunteered their time to review the research papers and to judge the presentations. Those of you who are here today, please stand and receive your well-deserved round of applause. STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS PRECOLLEGE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Presenter: Marvin Druger, President, NSTA Awardee: Terrence R. Ruffin, Laney High School, 9th Grade, University of North Carolina Summer Science Camp Program Title of Paper: "Barrier Island Topography and Vegetation Zones" PRECOLLEGE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Presenter: Marvin Druger, President, NSTA Awardee: Felicia Nicole Colon-Barnes, Holy Name Academy, 9th Grade, Seattle University Summer Science Camp Program Title of Paper: "Aerodynamics in Action" PRECOLLEGE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Presenter: Marvin Druger, President, NSTA Awardee: Roosevelt R. Love, Beaumont High School, Senior, St. Louis, Missouri, Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities Program Title of Paper: "Study of the St. Louis Metropolitan Metro-Link Light Rail Station Canopies" PRECOLLEGE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Presenter: Marvin Druger, President, NSTA Awardee: Liza Gabriella Ruvalcaba, Soccorro High School, 10th Grade, El Paso, Texas, Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities Program Title of Paper: "Drainage Time of a Roughly Cylindrical Container as a Function of Hole Diameter and Initial Water Height" The National Science Teachers Association is the largest organization committed to the improvement of science education in all areas, from preschool to college. Currently, NSTA has about 50,000 members. We provide a variety of journals, conventions, student services, competitions, awards, and many other services. If anybody would like to join, I just happen to have some cards in my pocket. As president, I'm empowered to give a 10 percent discount, so anybody who'd like to join, please see me. As president, I also have the privilege and great honor to attend this conference, and notwithstanding the fine presentations of my distinguished colleagues, I was most impressed by the student presentations. More than 40 presentations at this conference were made by middle and high school students who are participants in the Summer Science Camps (SSC) and the Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities (CRCM) programs. The NSF, SSC, and CRCM programs served approximately 50,000 precollege students in 1993, and these students are our future scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. What impressed me most was how bright, creative, poised, and articulate these students are. They're excited about science and they know what they're talking about. Somehow, I can't remember being that smart when I was that young. This is a wonderful opportunity to see what our scientists of the future are like, and they make me feel very optimistic about this future. Obviously, it was very difficult to select winners. To all the students, I can only say that everybody here is obviously a winner as a result of this experience. To all of the students who are here, you will not forget this. It will become part of what you are; you will remember the friends you met here, and you will remember the excitement of being at a professional scientific meeting. A famous saying that I just made up: "We learn from everyone whom we meet, and everything that we do becomes part of what we are." So I'm very happy to see that these students have learned something here and will go away with a good feeling about themselves and about their projects. There are two categories of "winner-winners," which I'll have to call them, since everybody's a winner. One set of winner-winners came from the Summer Science Camp Program, and two winners are from the Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities. Each of the four students will receive from the National Science Teachers Association a plaque, a subscription to Discovery magazine or Quantum magazine, and--because we like to help them go far in life--they also will receive an open airline ticket to anywhere in the United States, roundtrip, of course. --Marvin Druger UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: Phi Beta Kappa Presenter: Virginia R. Ferris, Executive Committee, Phi Beta Kappa and Professor of Entomology, Purdue University Awardee: Monica Renee Page, Tennessee State University, Senior, Research Improvement in Minority Institutions Program Title of Paper: "Application of Interval Modeling Techniques to Robust Control of Slewing Beams with Loads" Awardee: Gisela Rodriguez Rosado, University of Puerto Rico, Senior, Research Careers for Minority Scholars Program Title of Paper: "Triisopropylsilanol: A New Phase Transfer Catalyst for Dehydrohalogenation" The Phi Beta Kappa Society is honored to participate in this ceremony and to recognize the achievements of undergraduate students. The purpose of the Phi Beta Kappa Society is to encourage and further education in the liberal arts and sciences. We recognize that the role of science is often undervalued in education and we also recognize the importance for the country of encouraging undergraduates, particularly minority students, in scientific study and research. Phi Beta Kappa also recognizes the important role that undergraduate student research plays in strengthening interactions between faculty members and students, and how much research encourages students not only to complete their undergraduate work, but also to pursue advanced studies. I speak this from the heart because I am a practicing bench scientist myself and also a teacher. NSF's leadership role in providing opportunities for minority students to participate in undergraduate research is amply illustrated by the number of undergraduate research presentations in science, engineering, and mathematics at this conference. Of the more than 300 research presentations, approximately 42 percent were from NSF's premiere undergraduate programs, the Alliances for Minority Participation (AMP) Program and the Research Careers for Minority Scholars Program. These programs have an outstanding record of providing the support needed for minority students, enabling them to pursue degrees in science, engineering, and mathematics at the undergraduate level, and together they currently support more than 50,000 of the next generation of minority scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Papers were submitted by students representing these two programs and by students sponsored by other directorates at NSF. I should note that because of the large number of high-quality papers submitted to the competition, NSF has joined with Phi Beta Kappa to present two awards today. Both students will receive a check for $500 and a plaque from Phi Beta Kappa honoring their achievements. --Virginia Ferris GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) Presenter: Anne S. Pruitt, Dean in Residence, CGS, and member, NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering Awardee: Thomas Tenorio, New Mexico State University, Ph.D. student, Research Improvement in Minority Institutions Program Title of Paper: "Creating an Object-Oriented Test Repository" GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS Sponsor: Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) Presenter: Anne S. Pruitt, Dean in Residence, CGS, and member, NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering Awardee: Nathaniel A. Whitmal, III, Northwestern University, Ph.D. candidate, Engineering Directorate Program Title of Paper: "Noise Reduction Methods for Speech Enhancement" I have two awards to make, but first I want to join the other presenters in saying how impressive this conference has been and that we are, indeed, working with the scientists of the future. The Council of Graduate Schools is honored to present the awards for the outstanding graduate student research papers and presentations at this conference. We present the award in recognition of NSF's leadership role in providing quality education for minority students who are underrepresented in science, mathematics, and engineering, and as a reflection of our strong support for NSF's efforts. The graduate students who participated in this competition represent two programs of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources that focus on graduate education for minority students. One program is the Minority Research Centers of Excellence, which seeks to update the capabilities of the most research-productive minority institutions and to provide increased opportunities for minority faculty and students to engage in competitive research. The second program is Research Improvement in Minority Institutions, which provides grants to strengthen the research capabilities and infrastructures of institutions with substantial minority enrollments that have graduate programs in science or engineering. Together, these programs are responsible for a significant increase in the number of minority doctoral candidates and graduates in the last 3 years. On behalf of the Council of Graduate Schools, I would like to present each of the winners with a check for $500 and a plaque that reads, "The Graduate Student Achievement Award is presented by the Council of Graduate Schools in recognition of an outstanding research paper presented at the National Science Foundation Conference, Diversity in the Scientific and Technological Workforce, October 1, 1994, Washington, D.C." It is signed by Jules B. LaPidus, President of the Council of Graduate Schools. --Anne Pruitt SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS LEADERSHIP AWARDS The science, engineering, mathematics, and technology (SMET) education of minority students requires a comprehensive effort involving all segments of the community, including administrators, teachers, parents, and private-sector corporations. Some persons and institutions have a history of involvement in this effort and stand out as leaders in the field of science and education equity; a few persons have devoted their entire professional careers to the effort. NSF has created several awards to recognize and honor these persons and institutions for their creativity, dedication, and long-term efforts to expand educational options for minority students in science and technology. Their efforts have resulted directly in increased participation by minority students in the science and technology enterprise. The award presentations are summarized below. The awardees each receive a hand-lettered, framed certificate signed by the director, NSF, and the assistant director, Education and Human Resources. EDUCATOR ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Eugene DeLoatch, Dean, School of Engineering, Morgan State University Awardee: Eloy Rodriguez James Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies, Cornell University Dr. Eloy Rodriguez, former professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, is an internationally recognized phytochemist, toxicologist, and dermatoxicologist. He received his B.A. degree in zoology from the University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. in photochemistry and plant biology at the same university. During his professional career, he was an Endo-American Fulbright Senior Scholar Lecturer, a visiting professor and research scientist at the University of British Columbia, an invited lecturer of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the People's Republic of China, and a visiting professor and research scientist at the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Rodriguez currently holds a chair at Cornell University. Dr. Rodriguez was raised in Hidalgo County in south Texas, then the poorest per capita region in the United States. Ever conscious of his background, he continues to make special efforts to deliver lectures throughout the southwestern United States, inspiring students to consider careers in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. He has a special commitment to promote academic excellence among Chicano, Latino, and other minority students in science and engineering. His efforts have led to the development of several programs: the International Chicano Studies Program, which involves the Chicano community in seminars, special faculty research projects, and the arts; and the Kids Investigating and Discovering Science Program (KIDS), which hosts summer and Saturday science instruction for minority students in kindergarten through 6th grade and their parents. Students in the KIDS Program participate in hands-on data collection and analysis and exchange scientific data with students at schools throughout the Nation and world through the KIDS Network Innovative Telecommunication Program. Dr. Rodriguez also is the former director of the California Alliances for Minority Participation program grant from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Rodriguez has received the prestigious American Association for Higher Education Hispanic Caucus Award and the first Hispanic Educator Award from the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC). --Eugene DeLoatch EDUCATOR ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Eugene DeLoatch, Dean, School of Engineering, Morgan State University Awardee: Mary Hatwood Futrell Past President, National Education Association and Director, Institute for Curriculum, Standards, and Technology Dr. Mary Hatwood Futrell began her formal career in education as a high school teacher in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1963. She received her bachelor's degree in business education from Virginia State College (now University) and her master's and doctorate in education from George Washington University. She moved through the ranks of the National Education Association (NEA) to become the president of this 2.2-million-member organization in 1983. The development of standards for science and technology education is critical to the national effort to reform science and mathematics education for all children. During Dr. Futrell's 6-year tenure as NEA president, she led the organization's collaborative effort with other national organizations to develop, disseminate, and implement national standards for mathematics and science education. For example, NEA not only endorsed the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) but also disseminated them to its more than 2 million members through State NEA presidents and national board members and supported implementation efforts. From her position as a board member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), Dr. Futrell facilitated collaboration among NBPTS, NCTM, and NSTA in the development of national teacher certification standards. Dr. Futrell has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Virginia Women's Hall of Fame, Ebony magazine (Outstanding US Black Professional), Ladies Home Journal (100 Top Women in America), the NAACP (President's Award), and the National Council on Bilingual Education. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from many universities, including Spelman College, North Carolina Central, Xavier University, the University of Michigan, and George Washington University. She has published in Phi Delta Kappan, the Phi Kappa Phi Journal, and the Journal of Negro Education, among others. She holds office in many national and international organizations, including the Institute for Educational Leadership, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the National Commission on Working Women. She is also no stranger to the National Science Foundation, having served on the EHR Directorate Advisory Committee. Currently an associate professor, Department of Educational Leadership, and director of the Institute for Curriculum Standards and Technology at George Washington University, Dr. Futrell continues her efforts as an advocate for educational reform. As president of Education International, a 20-million-member organization with representatives from 130 countries, she is leading the organization's effort to provide equal access to a quality education for all children. She also serves as project director, Annenberg Mathematics and Science Teacher Leadership Corp Project. In this position, she is responsible for training 100 minority teachers nationwide as leaders in the science, mathematics, and technology education reform movement. Over the last 2 years, these teachers have reached approximately 5,000 of their colleagues. --Eugene DeLoatch EDUCATOR ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Eugene DeLoatch, Dean, School of Engineering, Morgan State University Awardee: Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III President, University of Maryland at Baltimore County Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, is the fifth president of the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. At the age of 42, he is one of the youngest African American presidents of a major American institution of higher education. He is recognized nationally for establishing and managing exemplary education programs, especially for African Americans who will be prominent among the scientists and engineers of the 21st century. Dr. Hrabowski's hometown is Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from high school when he was 15 years old, and at the age of 19 he received his undergraduate degree in mathematics with highest honors from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a master of arts in mathematics and a Ph.D. in higher education administration. Dr. Hrabowski has served in several academic and administrative positions at the University of Illinois, Alabama A&M University, and Coppin State College in Baltimore. He came to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in 1987 as vice provost and became executive vice president and vice provost 3 years later. He was inaugurated as president of UMBC on September 24, 1993. President Hrabowski is perhaps best known for the extraordinary success of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC. This program, which began in 1988 with a $522,000 grant from the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Foundation, is designed to increase student retention and improve the quality of the UMBC student body. This is accomplished through the recruitment of high-ability African American students who are awarded full 4-year scholarships. A great deal of personal guidance is provided to get them into the best graduate schools. The Meyerhoff Scholarship Program also receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Research Careers for Minority Scholars Program. One of Dr. Hrabowski's favorite poems is "Hold Fast to Dreams" by Langston Hughes. The poem reads, Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, For when dreams go, Life is a barren field frozen with snow. Freeman Hrabowski, it is a delightful pleasure for me, as one of your higher education colleagues in the State of Maryland, to award you the NSF Educator Award for 1994. You have truly helped students hold fast to their dreams. --Eugene DeLoatch INSTITUTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Jaime Oaxaca, National Science Board Member and Vice Chairman, Coronado Communications Corporation Awardee: Arizona State University Arizona State University is located near the center of metropolitan Phoenix in Maricopa County, where nearly 60 percent of the State's population resides. While the university has been designated as a Carnegie Research I Institution and has an enrollment of approximately 44,000 full-time and part-time students, emphasis is placed on increasing the academic achievement of minorities, who are underrepresented in science and engineering. Arizona State University prides itself on being one of the leading universities in the Nation in developing programs to address key issues to increase the participation and accomplishments of underrepresented minorities in science, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. These programs include a major role in initiating and implementing a successful AMP program, an undergraduate program supported by NSF to significantly increase the number of minorities who earn baccalaureate degrees in science, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, and the Project to Improve Minority Education (PRIME), a precollege program that introduced systemic curriculum changes with high academic expectations. PRIME has been in continuous operation in Arizona since 1988 and has served more than 50,000 students. The Institute for Strengthening Underrepresented Minority Students in Mathematics and Science (SUMMS) has been successful in increasing the number of minority students who are enrolled as mathematics majors at Arizona State University. Project 1000 is a program that has made an impact on the number of minority students who enter graduate school to study science, engineering, and mathematics. For its commitment of ensuring that minorities play an expanded and significant role in the university environment as well as in science, engineering, and mathematics, this NSF Institutional Award for 1994 is presented to Arizona State University. --Jaime Oaxaca INSTITUTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Jaime Oaxaca, National Science Board Member and Vice Chairman, Coronado Communications Corporation Awardee: Spelman College Spelman, a private liberal arts college, was founded in 1881 in Atlanta as the first U.S. college primarily for black women. The college's diverse student body is composed of 2,000 women representing 42 states and 20 countries. Spelman's success in producing leaders is quite evident in the sciences. Close to 40 percent of Spelman students major in science, mathematics, or a dual-degree program in engineering, and 30 percent graduate annually in these fields. In 1994, 121 of the 407 graduates earned degrees in science and related fields. Spelman College is ranked second for the number of African American baccalaureate degrees awarded in mathematics, fifth among all U.S. institutions in the number of African Americans admitted to medical school, and is one of only two historically black institutions ranked by the Carnegie Foundation as Baccalaureate I institutions, based on the competitive admissions process and the number of undergraduate degrees conferred. Last year Spelman established the Center for Scientific Applications of Mathematics to strengthen faculty and student research, contribute to the science and mathematics education of local high school students, expand the body of knowledge on undergraduate education in mathematics, and promote the development of interdisciplinary curricula. With a 45 percent increase in the number of science majors pursuing Ph.D. degrees, Spelman is poised to continue to address the challenge of the participation of African American women in science and technology fields. --Jaime Oaxaca INSTITUTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Jaime Oaxaca, National Science Board Member and Vice Chairman, Coronado Communications Corporation Awardee: Maricopa County Community College District The Maricopa County Community College District has carved out an important niche in higher education in Arizona and the United States. Ten colleges make up the Nation's second-largest multicollege community college district. This is the State's single largest provider of higher education. The Maricopa County Community Colleges share a common vision: to strive to exceed the changing expectations of their many communities for effective, student-centered, flexible, and lifelong educational opportunities. Faculty and staff are committed to the principles of diversity. This institution is known for its emphasis on teaching and learning. Nearly 170,000 students attend the colleges each year. Maricopa serves a large minority population--26.1 percent. More than 11.5 percent of its students are Hispanic, almost 4 percent are African American, 2.6 percent are American Indian and 8% are other minority groups. Inherent in the district's mission is providing service to minority students who attend the area's elementary and secondary schools. That service and attention include programs such as the NSF-sponsored Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities (CRCM), the American Indian Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (AIMES) program, the Urban Systemic Initiative, and additional programs such as Achieving a College Education (ACE), which enables minority students to begin college studies as high school juniors. Another program, Seamless Web, is designed to carry minority students through graduate school. The Maricopa County Community College District plays a leading role in the Phoenix Think Tank--an umbrella organization dedicated to the success of all students in an education pipeline that extends from kindergarten through high school to the Maricopa County Community Colleges and on to Arizona State University. The Maricopa County Community College District enjoys a strong relationship with Arizona State University. The two institutions work hand in hand to ensure a solid articulation process, with special emphasis on increasing the achievement of minority students, in science, engineering and mathematics. For its leadership and dedication to improving the quality of learning in science and mathematics for all students, and for its notable efforts for minorities at the precollege level through the CRCM project, this NSF Institutional Award is presented to the Maricopa County Community College District. --Jaime Oaxaca LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Luther S. Williams, Assistant Director, EHR Awardee: Warren E. Henry Professor Emeritus and Research and Seminar Director, Minority Access to Research Careers, Howard University This award was initiated at the first Diversity Conference and its purpose is to honor individuals who, over a sustained period, have exemplified the very finest in their individual careers and have had a major mentorship role. The idea is, most assuredly, to honor these individuals for lifetime achievement, but it also develops a pool of senior individuals with respect to stature, not age, who can participate in NSF's programming. Warren Henry earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the Tuskegee Institute (now University); a master's degree in organic chemistry from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta); and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago. He did postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT and in physics at the Catholic University of America and the University of Maryland. His academic predoctoral and postdoctoral training included periods of study and research with three Nobel laureates: James Franks, Wolfgang Pauley, and A. H. Compton. His distinguished academic career has covered more than 50 years, and I'll only highlight a few points here. He has taught at every academic level. He was a high school physics teacher and principal of a small school in Alabama. He served on the faculties of Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Tuskegee University, where he taught physics and chemistry. His research career which has been quite distinguished and of long duration, includes work at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, the University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Metals, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and Lockheed, where he rose to the position of senior staff scientist. He is involved in several seminal inventions, one of which is the metal dewar used for liquid helium, which makes it possible to study magnetic properties of substances in high magnetic fields at exceedingly low temperatures. Another major discovery involves a fiber optic subsystem, which has made it possible to rescue disabled submarines from deep waters. An individual of such distinction is listed in all the obvious places, and I'll cite only a few: American Men and Women of Science and Who's Who in America; Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; member of the Washington and New York Academies of Science; member of Sigma Xi and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Dr. Henry has to his credit more than 100 publications; the majority of these papers were published before the peak of the civil rights era, the significance of which is self-evident. He has received a host of other awards, including the Alumni Award from Tuskegee, the Outstanding Black Physicist Award, the Living Legacy Award of the National Technical Association, and honorary doctoral degrees from Clark Atlanta and Lehigh University. In 1969, in the second chapter of his career, he joined the physics department of Howard University and has been involved primarily in graduate education and teaching. It is estimated that half of the approximately 80 African Americans with Ph.D.'s in physics were taught, at least in one course, by Warren Henry. This is an individual unit of distinction, although I'm sure Dr. Henry would agree that the number itself is a national tragedy. He became a professor emeritus, because universities do that, but he ignored the emeritus status and continued to teach for almost 10 years. He is now involved in leading the Minority Access to Research Careers program that many of you know at Howard University. Warren, in acknowledgement of your many achievements over a long period of time and your major role in mentoring, NSF is pleased to present to you this Lifetime Achievement Award. --Luther Williams Warren Henry It's a great pleasure to be here, and I just want to say to the young students here--and to the old students, too--that it's worthwhile to pursue your goals and develop your undenied talents. I'm thinking of the poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Sir Thomas Gray. It says, Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air. We want to make sure that you develop your talents so that they will not be wasted. Thank you. LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Sponsor: NSF, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Presenter: Luther S. Williams, Assistant Director, EHR Awardee: Fred Begay Staff Assistant to the Director, Office of Science and Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratory Dr. Fred Begay, an experimental physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, received a B.S. in physics and mathematics, an M.S. in physics, and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. During his illustrious career, he has participated in high-energy gamma ray physics and neutron physics research, as well as solar wind and exploding wire research, and he has investigated fundamental theoretical and experimental plasma physics problems. Dr. Begay was born on the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation in Towaoc, Colorado. Because the Navajo language is not written, Dr. Begay's name is an Americanized extraction from his native Ute language. In 1979, Dr. Begay was the subject of a television documentary for NOVA entitled "The Long Walk of Fred Young." In this 1979 production, he explained that "A scientist looks at the world like a child--always wondering what it is made of. What are the pieces?" For more than 25 years, Dr. Begay has devoted his time and energy to understanding fundamental plasma physics problems. His research seeks to demonstrate technically the use of nuclear fusion as a practical, economical alternative source of electrical power with fewer health, environmental, and safety risks. Beyond his stellar research efforts, he has made substantive contributions to young people interested in science, mathematics, and technology education through his service as president of the Navajo Science and Research Council, a member of the National Research Council, a member of the New Mexico Steering Committee for the White House Conference on Indian Education, and a member of the Committee on Minorities in Physics of the American Physical Society. He currently has dropped any pretense of retirement and is serving as project co-director of the Alliances for Minority Participation Program at Arizona State University. Dr. Begay, it is a great pleasure for me to present to you the National Science Foundation's 1994 Lifetime Achievement Award. Your dedication to increasing the base of knowledge of physics and your involvement in increasing the presence of minorities in science and engineering have made a lasting impact on the education and research horizon. --Luther Williams Fred Begay Maybe I should speak in Navajo. It is indeed an honor for me to receive this award this year. I am deeply honored, and on behalf of my wife, Helen (we've been married 40 years and have 7 children and 17 grandchildren)--on behalf of my family, I accept this award. I, too, am proud to be a member of this meeting, and I, too, want to recognize the youth here. Youth are very important for the future. I began learning English--formal English--at the age of 23, and I studied physics and mathematics in German, so you see there were many challenges that I had to meet and overcome. You, also, will have many challenges, and I wish you all the best, for those of you who have this dream of being a scientist. Maybe you can join us at Los Alamos and do experiments! Thank you very much.