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By JENNIFER JACOBSON A University of Oklahoma study has found that minority groups are poorly represented in the nation's leading chemistry departments. The results of the recent survey were published Friday in AWIS Magazine, the publication of the Association for Women in Science. The study determined that of the 1,637 tenured or tenure-track faculty members at the top 50 chemistry departments in the United States, 22 were Hispanic, 18 were black, and three were American Indian. Twelve of the 18 black faculty members are full professors at retirement age or close to it, and none of the remaining six are assistant professors. (Only Stanford declined to participate in the survey, but the study concluded, based on interviews and an examination of Stanford's Web site, that it had no black or Hispanic chemistry professors. Stanford representatives did not immediately return calls for comment.) The hiring of black professors at the institutions dropped even as the number of newly minted black chemistry Ph.D.'s swelled to 56 in 1999, from 24 in 1990. Black scholars have kept pace with their Hispanic peers in the number of chemistry Ph.D.'s earned, yet since 1991, not a single black scholar has been hired to a tenure-track post at one of the top 50 chemistry departments, the study indicated. In that same period, 12 Hispanic chemists have found jobs in the top departments. Those results astonished Donna J. Nelson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma who, along with her students, conducted the survey. Ms. Nelson, who is one-quarter American Indian, initially wanted to survey the female chemists in the top 50 departments who are members of underrepresented minority groups. But when she found out they numbered only seven, she realized the sample was too small. So she changed course, only to find that the number of black chemistry professors at the 50 institutions wasn't much higher. Gregory H. Robinson, a black full professor of chemistry at the University of Georgia, was equally surprised. "The numbers are quite depressing," he said. "It doesn't bode well for us in the future." Mr. Robinson, 43, said the leading chemistry departments seem to be in no rush to find candidates like himself. He has applied to a number of top chemistry departments over the past several years. Each time, he said, he received a form letter from the search committee acknowledging that it had received his application. Then nothing happened. Months later, he said, he'd withdraw his application after hearing through the grapevine that interviews had begun without him. So "when people say that there aren't many blacks at these main institutions because they just don't apply, that's simply taking the easy way out, and often that's not true," he said. Harry Morrison, dean of science at Purdue University, said that he had heard such arguments before, but that the pool of black applicants didn't seem to be there. A higher-education organization, he said, should look into the problem. Ms. Nelson's results, he said, surprised him. "I wouldn't have guessed at the string of zeros at the assistant level for African-Americans. But we have struggled here at Purdue on this issue." Joseph S. Francisco, 46, Purdue's only full professor of chemistry who is black, said a pipeline for encouraging black students to obtain chemistry Ph.D's has been created and has enjoyed some success. But the problem, he said, comes at the end of the pipeline: "A lot of the top 50 schools tend to be clones of a few institutions, Harvard, M.I.T., Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, and Chicago. The faculty [at the top 50] looks like a clone of those faculties. They've done graduate work for people from those institutions." And this "academic nepotism," Mr. Francisco said, "does not render itself to diversification." Billy Joe Evans, 58, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's only black full professor of chemistry, bristled at the discrepancy between black chemists earning Ph.D's and those being hired. "These schools are training these people," he said, "so they should be qualified to work at these schools." Submitted by: Office of the Vice
Chancellor for Research 510/642-6671
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