According to the ACE report, in the 1995–96 academic year, 18.6% of African-American and 22.7% of Hispanic students entering colleges and universities were interested in majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This was comparable to the 18% of white students and 26.4% of Asian-American students expressing interest in STEM. Three years later, in 1998, about 56% of students from all four groups who initially expressed interest in STEM studies were continuing to study in STEM fields. However, by the spring of 2001 only 62.5% of African-American and Hispanic students majoring in STEM fields had attained a bachelor’s degree. This percentage is much smaller than the 86.7% of whites and the 94.8% of Asian-Americans. Many of the African-American and Hispanic students who persisted beyond the third year had not dropped out, but were still enrolled and working toward a degree after six years.

Students who were able to obtain a bachelor’s degree in six years or less were likely to:

• Have been better prepared by a rigorous high school curriculum;
• Have been younger than 19 when they entered college;
• Have at least one parent with a bachelor’s degree;
• Be from a family with higher income;
• Be working no more than 15 hours per week.

The study concludes that the real challenge is not to interest minorities in STEM, but rather to enable degrees to be completed in a timely fashion. This requires both improving pre-college education in all schools, not just the richest, and support within colleges and universities to deal with academic deficiencies that were not the student’s fault. It also requires financial support so that academic progress is not slowed by the requirement of earning enough to stay in school or support other family members.

The ACS CPT Workshop on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) reemphasized the important role such institutions have played in helping African-American students to obtain degrees in chemistry. The problems delineated by the ACE report are often encountered by faculty in HBCUs, and the HBCUs have an excellent track record of solving those problems and encouraging students to STEM careers. The Workshop on HBCUs provided a long list of recommendations for improving undergraduate education of African Americans in chemistry. Among those that readers of this Journal should consider addressing are developing educational materials specifically targeting minority communities (business and community leaders, students, teachers, and administrators) that “demonstrate the positive impact of chemistry…and the desirability of a career in chemistry”; providing examples of service-learning programs directly aimed at minority communities and publicizing these at ACS meetings; facilitating participation of undergraduates in ACS regional meetings; and heightening the visibility of minority role models.

And Gladly Teach has been used for several years as a resource by students and in workshops for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in academic careers. The recently published second edition contains the same useful information distilled from the experiences of a diverse group of authors that was in the first edition. There are four additional personal statements from recent Ph.D.s about their experiences, and there is now much more explicit information about issues that affect women, underrepresented minorities, and people with disabilities differently as they take on faculty positions.

The three resources listed in Literature Cited have a great deal to say about what can be done to encourage and enable participation in STEM disciplines by all groups in proportion to their representation in the population as a whole. There are so many different problems in the world and in our country that need the best science and the best scientists for their resolution that we cannot afford to miss out on the scientific contributions that can be made by every segment of our society. It behooves all of us to work in whatever way possible toward the goal of greater diversity in chemistry and all STEM disciplines.

Literature Cited

1. Committee on Professional Training. Final Report: Workshop on HBCUs and African American-Serving Institutions; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2005 (accessed Apr 2006).
2. Schwartz, A. T.; Archer, R. D.; El-Ashmaway, A. K.; Lavallee, D. K.; McGuire, S.; Richmond, G.; Eikey, R. And Gladly Teach, 2nd ed.; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2006; single copies available free from ACS Office of Graduate Education. See review by Kovac, J. J. Chem. Educ. 2006, 83, 705.
3. Anderson, Eugene L.; Kim, Dongbin. Increasing the Success of Minority Students in Science and Technology; American Council on Education: Washington, DC, 2006. This is one in a series of ACS publications titled The Unfinished Agenda: Ensuring Success for Students of Color (accessed Apr 2006).