Minorities Plan Snubs Industry Input

Before parting with money to fund the NSF program, corporate backers demand to play a greater role in charting its development WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation wants industry to invest more than $100 million in a new minority education program that would produce 50,000 baccalaureates and 2,000 Ph.D.'s a year in science and engineering by the year 2000. What the NSF doesn't want, say officials organizing the program, is a lot of advice from the businesses on how to set it up. That angers some of the company representatives who attended an NSF meeting in August to learn more about the program. The meeting, NSF's National Leadership Forum, to which 100 representatives of high-tech industries, academia, professional societies and other federal agencies had been invited, was called to showcase the agency's new Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) program. NSF outlined its plans to spend $10 million next year in a university-based program to help keep undergraduate minority students who enter college with the hope of becoming scientists and engineers in school. The plan also calls for soliciting corporate dollars that will more than match the contribution from the federal government and local universities. Every month scientists and engineers from Philadelphia-area companies like Unisys Corp., General Electric, and SmithKline Beecham Corp. visit their local high schools to chat with students about science. The casual get-togethers are only a small part of the Philadelphia Region Introduction for Minorities to Engineering (PRIME). The 17-year-old effort, which has sent 92 percent of its participants to college, is the sort of program the National Science Foundation would like to see established under its proposed Alliance for Minority Participation. Forty-one regional businesses have joined 21 colleges and universities and the Philadelphia and Camden, N.J., school systems to tackle what they see as a community problem: Minority children with sufficient aptitude for science are being blocked by poverty and low self-expectations from ever achieving a university degree and entering the engineering profession. PRIME starts with middle school-level grade students, who take special classes in math, science, and writing. Once in high school, students spend six hours a day during the summer at one of eight universities, taking classes, attending lectures by university professors, and working in laboratories. "Its a total-immersion education experience" says Joseph Bordogna, professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. "We embrace the kids." A rotating board of 20 industry, university, and school district representatives decides how to structure the programs and spend the money. The program's yearly budget of $760,000 comes from annual dues of $600 from each of the universities and $6,000 from each business, along with healthy contributions from several local foundations. The money pays for "books, high school teachers, trolley fares, and lunches," says Bordogna. "The rest of us volunteer our time." While the program is too small to make a dent in the looming national shortage of scientists and engineers, officials say that they are pleased with its impact. And they point proudly to success on one intermediate milestone: More than 80 percent of the 40,000 PRIME students have graduated from college, and 70 percent have already entered science, engineering, or technical professions. --D.M. What didn't happen at the meeting was an opportunity for the invited guests to share their vision of how to entice more Hispanics, blacks, and Native Americans to earn degrees in science and engineering. Instead, NSF asked the attendees for money. And that direct approach has generated criticism from those in the audience, many of whom are already running successful programs that target the same student population. They believe their input could make the program stronger, and they resent not being asked to help shape it. One of the disappointed industry officials attending was Richard Cole, who wanted to spread the word about his company's program to introduce engineering to minority youth in Connecticut. "I wanted to sit down with NSF and share our enthusiasm for helping minority kids," says Cole, director of public affairs for United Technologies Corp. "NSF has vision and leadership. I thought they could help us make sure this program survives. But we're uncomfortable plopping down a great deal of money with NSF and having no involvement." For their part, NSF officials believe the most important contribution industry has to make to the program is financial. "We asked them here to finance the program," says Luther Williams, NSF associate director for education and human resources, whose directorate is funding the initiative. "Discussing the program was not on the agenda. Sponsorship was." The program was conceived two years ago, according to Williams, "when NSF decided after a year of review of its existing minority education programs that we needed new objectives." One goal was to bring about 50,000 minority science and engineering baccalaureate degrees, and 2,000 minority doctorates, by the year 2000--an increase from the current levels of 37,891 and 630, respectively. But NSF officials calculated that it would cost $250 million, and they suspected that the Office of Management and Budget, the president's fiscal watchdog, would never agree to that kind of a request. As a result, says Williams, "we decided to make a smaller commitment and then solicit partnerships with other federal programs, with foundations, and with private industry." The next step in the plan was last month's forum. The guests were officials from high technology industries like Dow-Corning Corp., United Technologies, Hercules Inc., and the research labs of Ford Motor Co. It would be their money, labs, and equipment, Williams explains, that would make the minorities program possible. They were given the chance to meet other potential members of the AMP program, to hear why AMP was vital to the country's economic well-being, and to acquaint themselves with some of the problems they might encounter as program sponsors. In morning sessions the officials had split into groups to discuss such issues as forming alliances, financing alliances, evaluating alliances, and ensuring continuity. Over lunch, the executives heard Allied-Signal Inc. senior vice president Mary Good, chairwoman of the National Science Board, invite them to "bolster a cooperative effort to increase the chance for minorities to obtain degrees." Good told them that the problem of finding more minority scientists goes beyond simply getting them to enroll in college to study science. The university system is screening out too many of them before they have a chance to become working scientists. A recent Department of Education survey found that three-quarters of the young blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans who as college freshman declare their intention to become scientists or engineers either switch majors before they graduate or leave school altogether. To be sure, industry officials at the meeting were keen to support minority science education. But few were satisfied that they understood how NSF planned to do it. "[The forum] was a downer for me," says James Ramseyer of Dow-Corning, who had hoped to tell the NSF about his plan to put a "touch screen" computer into Michigan schools and colleges to teach math and chemistry to black students. "We came away with no model of the way industry can set up partnerships with the government." Like many of the representatives from companies, Ramseyer says he left the meeting more confused than enlightened about the potential role in the program for his company. "The people [in one of the discussion groups] felt too confused to be able to proceed," says John Mc-Shefferty, president of the Gillette Research Institute in Gaithersburg, Md. "What are we being asked to do?" He says that the written material he received on AMP program did not tell him how a program might be implemented or what his company's role would be. His packet consisted of an invitation to the program and a press release discussing the need to increase minorities in science and engineering. NSF officials acknowledge that the descriptions of the program and even the grant proposal guidelines they disseminated to more than 3,000 colleges and universities last spring are incomplete. But they say that approach was deliberate, to avoid narrowing the scope of any applications for funding. In addition, explains Williams, the meeting was meant to see who was interested in becoming an AMP patron, not to iron out the details of their participation. "We will be getting back to them [this month] to discuss the mechanics, issues, and how they might become sponsors," he says. Some forum participants don't buy that. They say that NSF does not want them to be directly involved, and doesn't intend to give them much of a voice in how their money is spent. "NSF invited us so they could get financial support," says Cole. "But we want to dialogue more to see how we can become meaningfully involved. Don't come to us with a done deal--let us have some ownership." Some participants saw a similar lack of openness in NSF's decision to hold the leadership meeting long after it had already invited universities, black colleges, and nonprofit organizations to send in their proposals for establishing minority undergraduate education alliances. Proposals are due in January, and by next fall NSF hopes to award grants of up to $1 million each to 10 university-based consortia. "NSF has already looked at 92 [planning grant] proposals, so the ground rules have already been established," says Paul Gassman, president of the American Chemical Society, most of whose 140,000 members work for private industry. "If someone wants me to pay for a program, I would like to play a part in setting up the ground rules." NSF officials declined to discuss any aspects of the submissions, saying that the information in such applications is private. Business has an important, but separate, role as a financial partner, says NSF's Williams. And he admits the August meeting's purpose was to raise money to support the AMP. But many participants say it's not good business to be cast in the role of uninformed investor. "Companies were told by one NSF staffer that they might simply put their money on deposit with the NSF, which would use it as the need arose," says Gassman. "This doesn't seem like something you could sell to a board of directors." American businesses already spend millions of dollars a year on their own minority education programs. One such program, by the 3M Corp. in St. Paul, Minn., invests up to $2 million a year on community education alliances and is rated by the National Society of Black Engineers as one of the 10 best in the country. Roger Linder, director of staffing and career resources at 3M, believes giving money to NSF could hurt his company's programs. "There are only a certain number of dollars to spend, so will this sort of proposal fragment the efforts we've already made?" he asks. "I would like the National Science Foundation to recognize the existing organizations and then match the dollars that are already there." NSF officials say they don't know how existing corporate alliances would fit into the AMP program. However, NSF recently awarded a matching grant to a university-corporate alliance for high school students in Philadelphia that, for 17 years, has existed on private funds. And both Williams and deputy director Karl Willenbrock say they see this as a model. "You have to do it locally. National programs don't work because the bottom line is the good of the community," he says. "And industry, as members of the community, have to be equal partners. Too often they're just expected to give their dollars, but for an alliance to work, they have to have an equal vote. The industrial executive rates just as high on our board of directors as does the university dean."

Minorities Plan Snubs Industry Input

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