Workshop on Excellence Empowered by a Diverse Academic Workforce: Achieving Racial & Ethnic Equity in Chemistry

The purpose of the Workshop 'Excellence Empowered by a Diverse Academic Workforce: Achieving Racial & Ethnic Equity in Chemistry' was to promote the development of a cadre of academic leaders who create, implement and promote programs and strategies for increasing the number of racial and ethnic minorities to equitable proportions on the faculties of departments throughout the academic chemistry community. An important objective of the workshop was to assist in creating an informed and committed community of chemistry leaders who will create, implement and promote programs and strategies to advance racial and ethnic equity in both the faculty and the student body with the goal of increasing the number of U.S. citizen underrepresented minorities (URM) participating in academic chemistry at all levels, with particular focus on the pipeline to chemistry faculty. This objective was met by (1) presentations of detailed data describing current levels of racial and ethnic minorities on the faculties of chemistry departments; (2) frank discussion of the obstacles to and benefits of racial/ethnic diversity in the chemistry professoriate; (3) summary of possible effective interventions and actions; and (4) promotion of the dissemination and adoption of initiatives designed to achieve racial/ethnic equity. Federal programs over the past thirty years have been instrumental in delivering to our universities URM students intending to major in the physical sciences such as chemistry. However, the near absence of URM faculty means that there is also an absence of URM as role models for aspiring students. For example, citing 2003 as a representative year, some statistics reveal the severity of the pipeline shrinkage for U. S. citizen URM starting from chemistry B.S. degrees awarded to the appointment to chemistry faculty. Compared to the URM population of approximately 30% for that year, 67% of the B.S. degrees in chemistry were awarded to white citizens and 17% were awarded to URM citizens. Proceeding along the pipeline, 83% of the Ph.D. degrees in chemistry were awarded to white citizens, and 6.4% were awarded to URM citizens. The number of white citizens occupying tenure faculty lines in chemistry departments at major research universities is estimated to be 86%, while the corresponding lines for URM was estimated to be only 3.7% in 2003. In raw numbers, the number of white chemistry faculty is estimated to be 1459 and the number of URM faculty was estimated to be just 62. Thus, starting with 16.6% for URM students awarded B.S. degrees in chemistry, the number decreases to 6.4% for URM students awarded Ph.D degrees in chemistry and then dwindles to only 3.6% URM faculty in major research universities, compared to a population of approximately 30% URM citizens. Similar statistics for URM representation in chemistry is found for the last two decades. Clearly there is a serious lack of URM mentors and role models among tenure faculty in our chemistry departments. The impact of this deficiency is captured in the statement that 'A university's lack of minority faculty sends a message to its students that minorities have no place in academia' thereby perpetuating a cycle of marginalization and discrimination. The lack of mentors and role models in academia deprive URM students who pass through the undergraduate programs of an education that is enriched by the intellectual and cognitive diversity that is inherent in a faculty of diverse backgrounds and cultures. Furthermore, URM are projected to constitute almost 32% of the U.S. population by 2020, so that URM will outnumber White males [who are projected to constitute 30% of the population (U.S. Census data)]. It is clearly time for this to change and proactive programs are needed immediately in order to insure that there will be an optimal inclusion of the future 'majority' of the U. S. domestic population throughout all levels of academia. The workshop was organized with the intention of triggering such a change by working with key representatives of chemistry in academia, namely the chemistry department chairs, to generate such programs, strategies and plans of action. This workshop called together the chairs of several of the top 50 Ph.D. granting chemistry departments in the country to design and develop new and comprehensive strategies to solve the problem of chronic URM under representation in chemistry and to commit to the goal of increasing the number of URM faculty in their departments. These chairs are well positioned to promote changes because they exist in environments that produce the majority of our chemistry faculty. With these leaders in the chemistry field taking responsibility for designing, developing, and implementing workable solutions, the community will have its best chance to create an excellent and diverse academic workforce in which the excellence of the URM component is appropriately represented