Success Factors for Minorities in Engineering

Jacqueline Fleming, Irving McPhail, Irving Pressley McPhail

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429762857
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This book aims to isolate specific success factors for underrepresented minorities in undergraduate engineering programs. Based on a three-phase study spearheaded by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, the findings include evidence that hands-on exposure to problem-based courses, research, and especially internships are powerful catalysts for engineering success, and that both college adjustment and academic skills matter, in varying degrees, to minority success. By encompassing an unusually large number and range of programs, this research adds to the evidence base for the importance of hands-on exposure to the work of engineering.

1 The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering

Its History and Mission

Since its inception in 1974, National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME) has remained true to its mission: to ensure American resilience in a flat world by leading and supporting the national effort to expand U.S. capability through increasing the number of successful African American, Latino, and Native American/Alaska Native women and men in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. The founding mandate of NACME was to conduct ongoing research, to identify the impediments limiting access to careers in engineering for underrepresented minorities (URMs), and to implement programs to achieve a technical workforce truly reflective of the American population (see also Pierre, 2015).

Scholarships became the central strategic thrust in the 1970s, and, today, NACME is the largest private provider of scholarships for URMs in engineering education. With funding from corporate and individual donors, NACME has supported more than 24,000 students with more than $142 million in scholarships and other support, and currently has 1,300 scholars at 31 Block Grant institutions across the nation. Through its administration of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. Program, 1,044 Ph.D. degrees in STEM disciplines have been produced. In addition, the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership (SIGP) has graduated 27 Ph.D. degrees and 103 Master’s degrees in STEM disciplines.

The NACME strategy over the past 44 years has also embraced a strong commitment to research and program evaluation, engineering public policy, and pre-engineering programs. NACME remains the most authoritative source of data and engineering public policy recommendations focused on moving the needle in URM participation in engineering education and careers (NACME, 2008, 2011, 2013). NACME also partnered with the National Academy Foundation and Project Lead the Way in 2006–2015 to open Academies of Engineering (AOEs) across the nation. The AOEs are urban-centered, open enrollment, high school-level engineering academies that provide all students with a strong science and mathematics education so that they will be college-ready for engineering education. In the AOE paradigm, NACME board companies and other industry partners provided internship and mentoring experiences for students designed to give them active, real-world experiences in engineering and innovation (McPhail, 2010, 2011).

University Programs

It is instructive to trace the evolution of the NACME scholarship strategy as context for the present study (NACME, 2010). Beginning in the 1970s, NACME, through the National Fund for Minority Engineering Students (NFMES), introduced the Incentive Grants Program (IGP). IGP provided universities with large grants with the expectation that they would provide additional university funding targeted at recruiting, enrolling, educating, retaining, and graduating increasing numbers of underrepresented minority engineering students. The program was initially successful, increasing the number of URM freshman in engineering study from 2,249 in 1973 to 1,116 in 1981. However, this rapid growth stalled through the 1980s, before bouncing back to 11,754 by the end of the decade.

NACME’s research department identified two factors accounting for these results: (1) the pool of URMs graduating from high school ready to enter undergraduate engineering education had remained stagnant during the late 1970s, marking 1980–1981 as a saturation point in the minority engineering recruitment effort; and (2) the growth in enrollment in engineering study was accompanied by a significant increase in student attrition. The consequence of this research was a re-direction of NACME resources to the establishment of Minority Engineering Programs (MEPs) on the university campuses. The MEPs acknowledged both the intensity of the undergraduate engineering education curriculum and the less than optimal conditions for learning at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) for URMs. The MEPs aimed to strengthen the academic and survival skills of URM engineering students.

With seed funding and technical assistance, NACME led the development of 11 MEPs in 1980–1981. NACME’s research efforts led to improvements in the MEP model, and, in collaboration with the National Association of Minority Engineering Program Administrators (NAMEPA), NACME published a best practices handbook on how to start and operate effective MEPs (see Landis, 1985). Additional print resources focused on academic success, financial aid, and career guidance were developed by NACME to optimize the national MEP effort, allowing NACME to touch the lives of thousands of URMs in engineering programs.

By 1980, the IGP was spending approximately $3 million annually and supporting about 12% of all URMs enrolled in undergraduate engineering education. However, the shifting landscape of student learning outcomes and college affordability resulted in NACME once again shifting the focus of the IGP from outreach and recruitment to scholarship support and best practices in retention to graduation.

The current NACME Block Grant Scholarship Program reduced the number of universities receiving grants from 140 to 31, focusing on those institutions with the best retention to graduation records. The minimum scholarship amount for individual students was increased, while the number of scholarships awarded was reduced. Universities that wish to participate in the NACME Block Grant Scholarship Program must document metrics that manifest the institutional commitment to recruiting, enrolling, educating, retaining, and graduating African American, Latino, and Native American/Alaska Native women and men in undergraduate engineering education. The program provides scholarship support in the form of a lump sum grant to partner institutions that enroll students from three sources—first-year students identified by NACME or the Partner Universities, transfer students from community colleges, and currently enrolled students who have completed at least one year of engineering study.

The NACME scholarship and university strategy has proven to be an eminently successful paradigm for undergraduate minority engineering education for over four decades. NACME Scholars maintain an unprecedented 79.1% six-year retention to graduation rate, compared to 39.3% for non-NACME Scholar URMs, and 60.3% for non-minority students (NACME, 2016). NACME Scholars earn an average GPA of 3.35/4.00 scale. Each year, the NACME Partner Institutions account for more than 30% of the total number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering awarded to African American, Latino, and Native American/Alaska Native students. One-third of NACME Scholars are first-generation college students. Poised to be leaders in the engineering workforce, 53% of NACME Scholars who participated in internship and co-op experiences in 2015 at 113 different companies said they would go back to work at the company based on their experience.

The “New” American Dilemma

In 2008, NACME released a landmark report titled The “New” American Dilemma: A Data-Based Look at Diversity (NACME, 2008). The term “American dilemma” was originally coined by Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal. Myrdal’s two-volume work by that title, commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation, examined the status of race relations in the United States (Myrdal, 1944). Published near the end of World War II in 1944, Myrdal found that despite a strong ethos of equality, African Americans were subjected to searing inequality. On any of the critical dimensions of survivability—health care, schools, jobs, housing, social facilities, etc.—the 10% of Americans of African descent at this time were far worse off than their Non-Latino White compatriots. Myrdal’s study laid bare the contradictions between the rhetoric of equality on the one hand and the reality of inequality on the other.

In the forward to the 2008 report, Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, President and CEO at NACME, aligned the dilemma described by Myrdal as a pressing social problem with the present dilemma of increasing the representation of African Americans, Latinos, and Native American/Alaska Natives in engineering. He argued:

Our purpose is to send a clear and unambiguous message that must be understood and acted upon if this nation is to retain its position of leadership in STEM and keep its competitive edge in the global marketplace of ideas and products.

That message is this: The solution to America’s competitiveness problem is to activate the hidden workforce of young men and women who have traditionally been underrepresented in STEM careers—African Americans, American Indians, and Latinos.

(p. 3)

Resolving this dilemma is a matter of increasing national import, as we have become a much more diverse and “flat” world. Engineers are the visionaries of the future. A diverse engineering workforce is key to maintaining our competitive edge in an increasingly global economy. Yet the founding vision of NACME of an engineering workforce that looks like America has remained “a dream deferred”¹ over the past four decades.

To more fully grasp the dimensions of this challenge, consider the major findings from the 2011 NACME Data Book: A Comprehensive Analysis of the “New” American Dilemma (NACME, 2011):

The U.S. Population Is Becoming More Diverse

• Between 2010 and 2050, the relative percentage of the U.S. population that is Non-Latino White is expected to decline from 65% in 2010 to 46% in 2050. By then, Latinos will account for 30% of the U.S. population and Asians for 8%.
• Already, 43% of school-aged children (aged 5–17) are African American, Latino, Native American or Asian/Pacific Islander Americans.
• Underrepresented minorities (URMs) account for 34% of the 18–24-year-old U.S. population.
• Forty percent of 18–24-year-olds are from ethnic minority groups; 34% are URMs.

The Pipeline to Engineering Is Far from Full

• Twenty percent of Latinos (males) and 14% of Latinas drop out of high school.
• Fewer than 8% of Latino, African American, and Native American high school seniors take calculus vs. 15% of Non-Latino Whites and 30% of Asian American seniors.
• The gender gap in high school preparation in advanced science and mathematics has disappeared; high school senior females and males are equally likely to take calculus, analysis/pre-calculus, chemistry, and physics.
• Underrepresented minority youth are less likely than Non-Latino White and Asian students to complete a “rigorous” high school curriculum.
  • Four years English.
  • Three years social studies.
  • Four years mathematics, including pre-calculus or higher.
  • Three years of science, including biology.

Enrollment Rates Are Increasing

• Enrollment rates have increased for all groups over the past 30 years.
• Community college enrollment has increased and has become a significant starting point for many students’ postsecondary education.
• Retention to graduation in engineering continues to be low with important variations across racial/ethnic categories.

Engineering Schools Are Not Tapping the Diverse U.S. Talent Pool

• URMs earned just 13% of all engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2009.
• Women earned just 18% of engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2009.
• There were 7,915 doctoral degrees awarded in engineering in 2009, of which 57% were awarded to temporary residents.
• Eleven percent of engineering doctoral degrees were awarded to U.S. women.
• URMs earned just 4% of the nation’s doctoral degrees in engineering in 2009, representing a total of 311 potential new faculty members for the more than 300 colleges of engineering in the U.S.

U.S. Engineering Is Robust Even in Difficult Times, Yet Does Not “Look like America”

• Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a need for 178,300 more engineers in the next decade with the fastest growth in biomedical, civil, environmental, industrial, and petroleum engineering.
• New engineering bachelor’s degree graduates continue to earn very high starting salaries (average $59, 435 in 2011), and the engineering unemployment rate of 6.9% is lower than that for all workers (9.3%).
• Nearly flat trajectories associated with Latino and African American representation on engineering faculties suggests that minority engineering students will continue to lack professors that “look like” them for many years to come.
• Salaries of men and women do not differ substantially within each of the ethnic/racial categories.
• Salaries of African American and Latino engineers are not on par with those of Non-Latino White engineers.
• Asian American engineers’ salaries are higher, on average, than those of other engineers, which may be due to specific industry or geographic factors.

Against the backdrop of The “New” American Dilemma, this book looks at performance and retention to graduation rates of minority students in NACME Block Grant Institutions. The authors believe that is important to identify what works and why in undergraduate minority engineering education, as opposed to continuing to document failure. Achieving NACME’s vision of an engineering workforce that looks like America requires that more be done to exponentially increase the number of URMs successfully completing the bachelor’s degree in engineering. It is our hope that this book will contribute to the knowledge base in undergraduate minority engineering education, and, at the same time, encourage more URMs to pursue engineering degrees.

Note

1What Happens to a Dream Deferred is one of a number of poems by Langston Hughes that speaks to the condition of African American people in the United States. The poem explores the dreams and aspirations of a people, and ponders the consequences that might arise if those dreams and aspirations are not realized. In the context of the present argument, the fact that the domestic engineering workforce does not look like America is a dream deferred. The consequences of the underrepresentation of African American, Native American, and Latino women and men in engineering education and careers pose serious threats to the United States’ stature in STEM on a global scale.

References

Landis, R. B. (1985). Improving the retention and graduation of minorities in engineering. New York: National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.

McPhail, I. P. (2010, Winter). Mentoring is key to building a diverse workforce. Winds of Change, 25(1), 80.

McPhail, I. P. (2011, November). Last word: Industry can help us diversify: Budget woes make the private sector a crucial player in STEM. ASEE Prism, 21(3), 80.

Myrdal, G. (1944). An American dilemma: The Negro problem and modern democracy (2 Vols.). New York: Harper & Brothers.

NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering). (2008). Confronting the “new” American dilemma: A data-based look at diversity. White Plains, NY: National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.

NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering). (2010). NACME alumni today: 2011. White Plains, NY: National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.

NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering). (2011). 2011 NACME data book: A compre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Appendices
• 1 The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering: Its History and Mission
• 2 Minorities in Engineering: Review of the Literature and Overview of the Study
• 3 Performance and Retention to Graduation Rates of Minority Students in NACME Block Grant Institutions: Analysis of Aggregate Statistical Data
• 4 Profile of Minority Engineering Students: Analysis of Focus Group Conversations
• 5 Profile of Minorities in Engineering: Analysis of Focus Group Mini-Surveys by Gender Within Ethnicity
• 6 The College Adjustment of Minorities and Non-Minorities in Engineering
• 7 The College Adjustment of Black and Hispanic Students in Engineering
• 8 The Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity in the College Adjustment of Engineering Students
• 9 Black Engineering Students in Black and White Colleges
• 10 Success Factors for Minorities in Engineering: Summary and Conclusions
• 11 A Postscript on NACME Scholars
• 12 Policy Implications: A Call to Action
• Index