Changing the Faces of Science

The Supreme Court's narrow ruling on the University of Michigan's admissions policy signaled a fragile affirmative action victory, and Shirley Malcom wasted no time stating her position on its relationship to her own career. "Being black and female got me in the room," says Malcom, seated in the sunny and spacious lounge of the American Association for the Advancement of Science office suite she considers her inner sanctum. "But that is of less importance than what I do in the room." She entered "the room" as an AAAS resident assistant in the mid-1970s. Today, Malcom is arguably the nation's most prominent advocate for the empowerment of the general public through science and technology education. An AAAS directorate head, she is charged with developing and driving fifty educational and human resources programs. She parlays an annual budget of $1.5 million (US) from AAAS into $7 million for programs such as Science Linkages in the Community, which organizes local re-sources to bring high-level science, math, and technology programs to economically stressed neighborhoods. But she does more than handout charitable contributions and federal funds. The Community Computers for Rochester, New York, establishes computer labs in troubled neighborhoods. Initiated by AAAS in1993, the project is now not only community-based, but also community-run. "It has flourished for the past six years without a dime from us," Malcom says. "I want to help organizations build their own capabilities so that good works can continue long after the relationship with AAAS has ended." POLITICAL PARLANCE In 1999, when Malcom testified before the House Science Committee on the importance of adequate science and math preparation not only for employment but also for an educated country, the nation was already spending $2.5 billion on 63 math and science programs, "... a drop in the bucket," says a poker-faced Malcom. Her fearlessness and resolve in expanding that purse have stood her in good stead over the years: Malcom has done well by doing good, earning herself an increasingly prestigious and powerful place at the table. But in the vastly white and male world of the institutions where she has positioned herself, Malcom must constantly negotiate between the notability demanded by her public advocacy role and the dangers of losing credibility should she ever appear to become too enamored of the spotlight and power. Lovell Jones, director of the Center for Research on Minority Health, says Malcom negotiates this impasse well, exerting power without dictating. "[Shirley's] formidable, but not intractable," says Jones, an advisory board member of The Scientist. Malcom observes that she can be effective only if her hand remains invisible. "I don't control large budgets or large programs," she points out. "My only influence is in influencing the way people with real power behave." This is precisely what seemed to occur in 1998 with the publication of "Losing Ground: Science and Engineering Graduate Education of Black and Hispanic Americans," an AAAS report Malcom coauthored. The report attributed declining minority enrollments in science and engineering fields to an "unwelcoming environment" for minority graduate students, pointing to state laws and regulations aimed at scaling back affirmative action programs for higher education. President Clinton cited the report, as did scientific and education journals, prompting public debate that ultimately may have influenced the recent Supreme Court decision. National Science Foundation director Rita Colwell sees Malcom's advocacy as having more to do with the best interests of the United States than the special interests of any particular group. "It is of importance to the country that she succeed," Colwell says. "Minorities and women represent the largest proportion of our population." Malcom has every intention of succeeding. Her flurry of activity would seem to present a challenge to the laws of space and time. In addition to Science Linkages in the Community, Malcom developed the AAAS Black Church Project, a faith-based coalition of 3,500 churches that trains scientists, health professionals, educators, clergy, and other volunteers to lead hands-on workshops in their communities. To help fulfill the AAAS benchmark for science literacy, she turned an intern's idea for a children's radio program into the Peabody Award-winning children's radio show, Kinetic City. Recently, the show morphed into an interactive science adventure on the Internet, funded by the NSF. Such advocacy is not limited to the United States. Recently, Malcom made an "emergency trip" to Geneva for a United Nations Science Commission meeting. "I want people around the world to see science as being as vital as the areas of politics and the law to their struggles for jobs, clean water, and better health care." As cochair of a UN Gender Advisory Board, Malcom played a major role in putting science education on the agenda of the historic gender conferences in Nairobi and Beijing. Malcom has lately taken up the cause of postdoctoral researchers in life sciences, advocating the reform of stipend-granting policies and mentor practices for postdocs. She views the issue as that of the postdocs "not having power and not being treated like people with adult responsibilities." In addition to carrying its message to meetings, including a National Academy of Sciences meeting last November, she has offered the AAAS Education and Human Resources unit as an incubator for the National Postdoctoral Association, until the NPA can obtain its own tax-exempt status. Malcom relishes the rewards of her own self-empowerment and her empowering of others, without apology or mystification. "I've been at the table, and I have not been at the table," she relates. "Being at the table is better." CIVIL SCIENCE It is hard to imagine the self-possessed Malcom ever not being at the table, until she talks about her origins in Birmingham, Ala., at the boiling point of the US civil rights struggle. "It was a time and place deeply divided along racial lines," she says. Three blocks from her childhood home, Bethel Baptist Church, an early headquarters for Alabama's Christian movement for human rights, was bombed three times. She remembers one year when the reverberation of a bomb's blast caused her family's Christmas tree ornaments to erupt into a tinkling cacophony. Malcom was attending college at the University of Washington in Seattle by the time four black girls, one the daughter of a family friend, were killed in the Sixteenth Street Church bombing, and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., along with the international media corps, came to Birmingham for their funeral. She considers how that history marked her. "One of my challenges was to become a more public person than I might ordinarily have chosen." Malcom has more than met the challenges of public life. Today, when she refers to the "movement," as she does often, it is likely that she isn't referring to the historic struggle for civil rights but to the science education movement of which she is a leading voice and face. Says Colwell, "She has very high visibility through her activities. She has worked hard on education programs. Her programs are well respected and popular." Malcom says she has come to measure her own effectiveness in this way: "If I go to a meeting now, and I'm not the one giving the equity speech, I feel I've made a difference." For Ruth Kirschstein, senior advisor to the director of the National Institutes of Health, the mix of "passion, will, and joy" with which Malcom imbues her fight to keep the issue of equity in the forefront is Malcom's secret weapon. "It's so easy to become overwhelmed by the issues of education in general or poverty in general," Kirschstein says. This year, the National Academy of Sciences bestowed on Malcom the Public Welfare Medal, citing her "vision, dedication, and effectiveness in bringing ... high-quality science education to groups traditionally distanced from the science world." Despite her velocity and visibility, Malcom maintains a hands-on administrative style at AAAS, at the heart of which is a passionate teacher. During a recent meeting, she received a call about an AAAS workshop to help Washington, DC, public middle school teachers consolidate the teaching of science and mathematics. Malcom learned from the call that the teachers were in the middle of a heated discussion about differences between chemistry and mathematical equations. Malcom left her meeting for the workshop. Before returning, she had made each teacher an AAAS member. Not everyone applauds Malcom's hands-on managerial approach. A few former employees who have resigned from her education and human resources unit at AAAS say that Malcom is not a good delegator. "The truth is, I have to delegate a lot," Malcom says. "What I must hold onto are those things where we are beginning to develop an idea, an issue, or project, but then only long enough for it to have sufficient substance to be handed onto someone else." Rumors in recent years have suggested that Malcom turned down both a distinguished college presidency and a government appointment to remain at AAAS. She neither substantiates nor denies the rumors. "At this level the policy stuff is less rewarding than engaging with people who are the beneficiaries," she says. "That's where the real challenges and the real possibilities are." Don Belton (belton@temple.edu) is a novelist and essayist in Philadelphia. function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? 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Changing the Faces of Science

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