Asian American Investigators Decry 'Glass Ceiling' In Academic Administration

DISCRIMINATING: Cecelia and Cabriel Manrique's research reveals bias against Asian Americans in academia. Chang-Lin Tien, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley; Henry T. Yang, chancellor of UC-Santa Barbara; David Chang, president of Polytechnic University; Alice Huang, dean for science at New York University; James Wei, dean of engineering at Princeton University. These names are mentioned prominently when discussion turns to distinguished scientists and engineers of Asian ancestry who have reached the highest levels in United States academia. Yet among Asian scientists of all backgrounds, talk of the Asian experience in U.S. academic science often includes scenarios such as the following: A Caucasian postdoc is greeted as a colleague by a Caucasian professor while his senior professor, who is an American of Asian ancestry, is greeted as the postdoc. An outstanding U.S.-raised M.D.-Ph.D. student with an Asian-sounding name is approached about his work by a major researcher in his field via a third party, for fear the graduate student doesn't speak English well. "Those are not intentional mistakes," maintains molecular virologist Kuan-Teh Jeang of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. But the Taiwan-born Jeang, the M.D.-Ph.D. student in the earlier anecdote who attended English schools from age five and has lived in the U.S. since he was 10 points out that these behaviors and misconceptions pervade U.S. culture. Statistical and anecdotal evidence abounds about the large numbers of Asian graduate students in science and engineering programs across the U.S. Yet, according to some researchers and faculty members, there is subtle, and often even overt, racism in academia. This, they say, explains the impediments to success experienced by scientists and engineers of Asian ancestry and why only a relative handful of them have made it to high administrative posts. "I think that there's no question that there are not that many Asians in the higher ranks in the sciences," says NYU's Huang, one of the few people of Asian descent who have reached the rarefied air of senior administration. Asian American scientists report that for them, close to a Catch-22 situation prevails. In addition to the general discrimination they face because of their ethnic background, they are often_in the eyes of academic administrators and their own colleagues_grouped together with all scientists of Asian ancestry. These include, for example, foreign researchers residing in the U.S. on temporary visas who intend to return to their countries, or who might struggle with language. Decisions made on such a general basis, Asian American researchers say, can have a devastating effect on careers. Traveling up the academic ladder can demand more from an Asian than a white, according to Gabriel Manrique, a professor in the economics and finance department at Winona State University in Minnesota. Manrique, along with his wife, Cecilia, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, is studying the immigrant experience in universities. "Asian faculty as well as other immigrants_have had to deal with what I call the incredible, flexible yardstick," says Gabriel Manrique, who is of Filipino ancestry. Women made up 22.4 percent of the science and engineering work force in the U.S. in 1990, up from 13.3 percent in 1980, according to the National Science Foundation report Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering, 1994. Percentage-wise, Asian women who were full- time faculty members in the natural sciences in fall 1992 fared poorly in comparison with their Caucasian colleagues: 12.5 percent of Asian faculty members were female, while 25.2 percent of white faculty members were female (Faculty and Instructional Staff: Who Are They and What Do They Do?). In fact, according to Mark Regets of NSF's Division of Science and Resources Studies, half the number of Ph.D.'s in science and engineering were granted to U.S. citizens of Asian ancestry and female Asian immigrants on permanent visas, as compared with men in the same categories, and only 21 percent of the degrees granted to Asians on temporary visas went to women. Some researchers refer to women of Asian ancestry as hitting a double glass ceiling. "We know that females suffer bias, and minority groups do, also; and, therefore, that has to be additive," says Alice Huang, New York University's dean of science. "Being a woman also complicates the issue," says Flossie Wong- Staal, Florence Riford Professor in AIDS Research at the University of California, San Diego, although she adds, "Personally, I don't feel discriminated against." Ph.D.'s GRANTED TO PERSONS OF ASIAN ANCESTRY IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, 1993 MALE FEMALE U.S. Citizens 478 232 Non-Citizens with Permanent Visas 595 297 Non-Citizens with Temporary Visas 4,581 983 --M.E.W. "Standards for hiring, tenure, and promotion magically change for nonwhite faculty. This is often done by changing the emphasis of what is supposedly important for a personnel decision. As such, we always have to be better than the rest just to stay even." The Manriques explored the nature of prejudice experienced by Asian academic scientists in an article in Proteus: A Journal of Ideas (G.G. Manrique, C.G. Manrique, "Immigrant faculty and American higher education," pps. 31-34, Fall 1994). "Certain acts of prejudice are openly exclusionary," they wrote. "For example, an immigrant faculty member related how fellow members of a university search team openly cast out applications from persons with 'foreign-sounding' names. . . . Discrimination and prejudice can also be found in acts of omission. Several of our respondents recounted how, as new hires and as junior faculty, they did not receive mentoring from their deans, chairs, or senior colleagues during the tenure and promotion process. ". . . The costs of discrimination are obvious. They generate a feeling of isolation and frustration and they potentially impact careers by affecting tenure and promotion decisions. Since one's colleagues, chairs, and deans are involved in personnel decisions, immigrant faculty wonder about the impact of these person's racial attitudes. An example is the statement of the dean to faculty members that if their Asian- American colleague is good, 'we will give him two bowls of rice instead of one' a harmless joke or a reflection of the worth given the efforts of these immigrants?" Individuals of Asian ancestry are represented significantly in academic teaching ranks. U.S. Department of Education figures for fall 1992 (Faculty and Instructional Staff: Who Are They and What Do They Do? U.S. Government Printing Office, 065000- 00702-9) reported that 8.1 percent of all full-time faculty with teaching duties in the natural sciences were Asian, although they represent about 2.9 percent of the population, according to Census Bureau statistics. An as-yet-unreleased National Science Foundation report (Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 1994) shows that U.S.-born people of Asian ancestry in science and engineering are employed in academia at about the same percentage rates as U.S.-born Caucasians, 43 percent for Asian Americans vs. 45 percent for whites. A smaller percentage of Asian immigrant scientists and engineers educated in the U.S. (37 percent) find employment in academia than whites. However, the report also states that only 35 percent of Asian scientists and engineers are full professors, compared with 44 percent of Caucasians, and a smaller percentage of Asians are tenured when compared with Caucasians (56 percent to 70 percent). The report authors hypothesize that this is related to "fewer years of professional work experience," because full professor and tenure figures are almost the same for Asians and whites with eight or more years of experience. Following are some organizations representing primarily United States-based scientists of Asian ancestry: American Chinese Toxicological Society c/o Investigative Toxicology 7228-209-1 Upjohn Co. Kalamazoo, Mich. 49001 (616) 385-6903 Members: 100 Contact: Basil Leong, president American-Korean Physicists Association (AKPA) Naval Research Laboratory 455 Overlook Ave., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20375 (202) 767-3382 Fax: (202) 767-0082 E-mail: ahn@ccf.nrl.navy.mil Members: 800 in the United States and Canada Contact: Saeyoung Ahn, president Association of Scientists of Indian Origin In America Inc. (ASIOA) University of Mississippi Medical Center 2500 N. State St. Jackson, Miss. 39216-4505 (601) 984-5511 Fax: (601) 984-5503 Members: 500 President: Ramendra N. Pandey, R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute Contact: Durisala Desaiah, executive officer Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) 6261 Executive Blvd. Rockville, Md. 20852 (301) 984-7048 Fax: (301) 984-1231 E-mail: KSEA@Digex.com Members: 8,500 President: Dewey D.Y. Ryu, University of California, Davis Contact: Sung Woon Oh Sino-Eco c/o The Nature Conservancy 1815 Lynn St. Arlington, Va. 22209 (703) 841-8760 E-mail: 6794639@mcimail.com Founded: 1988 Members: 150 Contact: Xiaojun Li, vice president Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA) 8119 Woodmont Ave. Bethesda, Md. 20814 (301) 652-7222 Fax: (301) 652-7390 E-mail: scbausa@aol.com Members: 2,000 President: C.S. Yang, Rutgers University Contact: George Yang, executive director --M.E.W. Whereas several top-ranked schools have many people of Asian ancestry in the upper professorial ranks, other prestigious universities have almost none in some science departments. Princeton University Ph.D. candidate Ron Shigeta, a Japanese American, responded to an Internet query on Asian Americans in science: "There has never been an ethnic minority candidate of any sort during my seven years as a student" in the chemistry department, even though he estimates that half of his fellow chemistry graduate students at Princeton are Asian. Martin F. Semmelhack, associate chemistry chairman, says the department has just hired an American of Chinese ancestry. "The criteria for getting a faculty position are pretty high," Semmelhack states of his department. Semmelhack suggests that many top Asian chemistry candidates go to industry, or are non-natives who return to other countries after graduation, or have difficulty with English. Even if Asians are statistically well represented in the professorial ranks, 1990 census data found that only 1.9 percent of administrators in education and related fields identified themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander. For scientists of Asian ancestry, the perception of a glass ceiling suggested by such statistics is strong. "If one person comes out, like the chancellor at Berkeley, a Chinese person, it's news to the whole world," complains Ravi Sinha, a professor of geology at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. "It should not be that way." ALICE HUANG: The NYU dean sees tha tlack of Asians in academic administration as a challenge. "It seems to me," pathologist Tien Sze Benedict Yen of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote The Scientist, "that there is still a general lack of Asian Americans in leadership positions in science." "I think the underrepresentation is even more obvious, given there is such a large pool to choose from," notes NIAID's Jeang, referring to the relatively large numbers of citizens of Asian ancestry within the academic ranks. "I don't think there is any inherent inability of Asian Americans to perform leadership roles. The issue really is, have they been offered that opportunity to demonstrate that?" Sinha's answer to that question is straightforward: "Very, very few people outside the [white] group" become deans, provosts, or vice presidents, or obtain other positions within administration. Some academic administrators and even some Asian scientists point to factors such as language and cultural barriers and the tendency for top scientists to get out of academia -- or, in some cases, return to their home countries -- as major hurdles to progress for Asian scientists in academia. Princeton's Semmelhack states that U.S.-born individuals of Asian ancestry, such as the person just hired by Princeton's chemistry department, "don't have the language problems" that immigrants have. Savio L.C. Woo is a specialist in molecular genetics and gene therapy in the department of cell biology and molecular genetics at the Baylor University College of Medicine and a founder and past president of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA). (For the names of other Asian scientific organizations, see list at left.) "Speaking as one of the members [of SCBA]," Woo says, "I think the Orientals do quite well in this particular field. The only difference between the foreign-born and the native-born is the mastery of the language. The main thing for us is how to overcome the language problems, how to overcome the cultural obstacles. . . ." Bethesda, Md.-based SCBA will take a stand on major issues regarding discrimination, Woo maintains. He cites as an example a protest by the group against quotas placed by some Ivy League colleges to limit acceptance of students of Asian ancestry. "It's totally against the law of the land," Woo states. Forest ecologist Yao Yin of the National Biological Survey Environmental Management Technical Center in Onalaska, Wis., and a research assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, came to the U.S. from China in 1986. He believes he is treated fairly, and does not object to being passed over in favor of another scientist when it comes, for example, to selecting people to discuss his work with the media. "For going to the media, I may not be the first choice," he says, pointing out that his English-language fluency may be a problem. Ecologist Xiaojun Li, who specializes in remote sensing at the Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Va., also notes that sometimes it is difficult for scientists who grew up in other cultures to mix socially with Americans. He points out that "most of the people here like football, like basketball games," an interest that is lacking in his native China. But David Chang, president of Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Polytechnic University, is skeptical about the language problems: "There is no clear correlation between the language issue and the teaching of a very productive faculty [member], whether foreign-born or not." He says that the main language difficulties are not within the faculty ranks, but among teaching assistants_recent arrivals who need to improve their skills. According to Da Hsuan Feng of Drexel University, some exceptional researchers, despairing of the possibility of breaking through the "glass ceiling," but desirous of entering into academic administration, are now returning to Asia in significant numbers. This phenomenon was examined in a recent New York Times article (A. Dunn, Feb. 21, 1995, page A1). Feng explains that this exodus has been facilitated by the fact that, for the first time in more than 30 years, "there's a great sense of tranquility" in Asia, and Asian nations are undergoing a rapid transformation. This has led to development of many high-powered research institutes in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, creating opportunities for top Western-trained scientists of Asian extraction to take prestigious positions. Asian scientists who have reached the halls of administration acknowledge the existence of a glass ceiling, but have differing assessments of its strength, and what should be done about it. Polytechnic's Chang points out, "I know of about eight or nine Chinese Americans who are scholars [and] who are deans of engineering of major universities. I believe all of them are immigrants, including myself." Chang, an electrical engineer who holds a Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University, comments that that cohort attended graduate school at major U.S. universities about 20 years ago. But he sees the real question as what will happen "if one starts to look at people like my son's generation, when they are born and raised here." NYU's Huang, a product of U.S. private girls' schools, Wellesley College, and Johns Hopkins, says, "Until recently, I've never felt myself to be a member of a minority group." She sees the glass ceiling as goal for Asians to overcome: "The next challenge is for Asians to take on academic leadership, particularly in the sciences. It is sure to come." Even some strident critics are optimistic. "In some instances," says Elizabeth City State University's Sinha, "cracks are developing in the glass ceiling." "On the whole," maintains Princeton's Wei, "we need to break the glass ceiling as a matter of routine." Myrna E. Watanabe is a science writer based in Yonkers, N.Y.

Asian American Investigators Decry 'Glass Ceiling' In Academic Administration

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