From Grad School to a Job: How to Get Underrepresented Minorities into the S&T Workforce

It’s been a good decade for underrepresented minorities pursuing doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But even though more minorities are getting doctoral degrees, the small number of faculty members who are minorities has not budged.

At a recent AAAS-organized conference, principal investigators receiving federal funding to increase minorities in science and technology fields brainstormed ways to move minority doctoral recipients into faculty positions. They tossed around ideas as if their funding depended on it—which, in fact, it partly did.

“We’re at the crucial juncture. It’s time to put up or shut up,” said James Wyche, division director of Human Resource Development at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Wyche oversees the NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), which funds 23 minority-supporting programs—known as alliances—at over 100 colleges and universities across the country.

For more on increasing the number of underrepresented minorities on American science and engineering faculties, read the full story.