Download PDF Fall Bridge on Engineering a Diverse Future September 25, 2024 Volume 54 Issue 3 Guest edited by Wanda Sigur and Percy Pierre, this issue of The Bridge addresses the issues around sustaining a U.S. engineering workforce that builds on and integrates the talents and ideas of our diverse nation. The 50-Year History of the Minority Engineering Effort: How the Engineering Profession Sparked the Movement to Diversify Its Workforce Thursday, September 26, 2024 Author: Percy A. Pierre and Catherine J. Weinberger Looking back at the history of the minority engineering effort offers an example of how, with strong leadership, a seemingly intractable problem can be solved with a systems approach. Fifty years ago, major private US institutions came together to help solve a problem that none of them could solve alone. Spurred by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the new affirmative action mandates of the Nixon administration in 1971, they formed a collaboration to increase the number of minority engineering graduates. Prior to that, each organization had its own programs to contribute to the solution of this national problem. They found that this approach was not working. At that time, the focus was on African American engineering graduates. Between the 1968–69 and 1970–71 academic years—the first three years of systematically counting new engineers by race—the number of new African American bachelor’s degree graduates in engineering grew from 314 to 407, and more than half of those graduated from one of the six historically Black engineering programs (Pierre 1973; Weinberger 2018). This changed rapidly after the minority engineering effort began. By the early 1980s, the number of bachelor’s degree graduates had grown to about 2,000 per year, reaching 3,000 per year by 1995. Recent annual estimates are in the 5,000–6,000 range for bachelor’s degrees, over 1000 for master’s degrees, and over 150 for PhDs, compared to 314 bachelor’s degrees, 17 master’s degrees, and two PhDs in 1969. Trends since 1995 are discussed in the following article, “Does the Minority Engineering Effort Have a Flat Tire?,” while this piece is focused on the story behind the remarkable, nearly tenfold growth in African American bachelor’s degree graduates in engineering between 1970 and 1995. Recent years reflect a holding pattern. Published statistics describe a flatlined proportion of new engineering graduates who are African American.[1] During the first 30 years of the minority engineering effort, this statistic rose from less than 1% to 5.5% before declining. Over the past decade it has stabilized at a bit over 4%. An understanding of the history of the minority engineering effort provides lessons on how we might move forward. The minority engineering effort is an example of how, with strong leadership, a seemingly intractable problem can be solved with a systems approach. The following describes how, beginning in 1972, General Electric (GE), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation came together to form an effective minority engineering effort. Each of these three organizations moved out of its comfort zone to do something together that it could not have done alone. They decided that it was not sufficient to simply contribute to a solution; it was necessary to take responsibility for results on a national scale. The success of this effort was enhanced by close collaboration, and also by the ability of engineers in leadership roles to employ a systems engineering approach. The strategy that evolved included leadership from CEO-level executives of industry and universities, a strategic and systemic analysis of the problem at all levels of the educational pipeline to identify areas for the most impactful interventions, a program design strategy that maximized the national impact, and a funding strategy designed to elicit long-term funding from industry, universities, and government entities. The key leaders of the minority engineering effort at that time were Reginald Jones, chairman of GE, Robert Seamans, president of the NAE, and Robert Kriedler, executive vice president of the Sloan Foundation.[2] That effort helped create many of the minority engineering programs that are, or will soon be, celebrating their 50th anniversaries. Today, we are facing a problem with minority engineering education similar to the problem that presented itself in the 1970s. Individual actors are making contributions, but the results fall far short of what is needed. Planning and Collaboration The GE Initiative In 1972, Percy Pierre—who was then the dean of engineering at Howard University—received an invitation from GE to attend a meeting at their Crotonville, New York, Education Center. GE was a leading employer of engineers. Like other companies, GE made contributions to engineering schools to help them in the production of engineers, including minority engineers. GE recognized that this approach was not working for minority students. At the meeting, Stanley Smith, senior VP of GE, gave a presentation on the need for more minority engineering graduates, largely based on a strategic analysis of the engineering educational system and its production of minority engineers. This study was led by Lindon Saline, VP of GE and director of the GE Education Center, where the meeting was held. Also in attendance were Fred Borch, the CEO of GE at the time, Edward David Jr., director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, and a select number of US deans of engineering. Many of the attendees later played active roles in the implementation of the minority engineering effort. For example, Smith was the founding chair of the Board of the National Scholarship Fund for Minority Engineering Students, which still exists as part of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), and Fred Borch was one of the founders of the Business Roundtable, a CEO-led business group advocating for industry whose members later provided essential funding to the effort. Those in attendance learned that GE, and companies like it, had difficulty hiring minority engineers as required by the new affirmative action mandate of the Nixon administration. Assuming that the primary barrier was financial, GE had approached other engineering companies and offered to lead a collaborative effort to produce more African American engineers by providing financial support through scholarships and a program of cooperative education in which students would work half time and go to school half time. During the discussion that followed Smith’s speech, Pierre expressed appreciation for the fact that companies were willing to come together to help solve this problem. He then raised the concern that too few African American high school graduates were knowledgeable of and prepared for engineering study, and that a program of college scholarships and work study positions would do no good without attention to the K–12 educational system. His major problem was that he simply did not have enough students to use their support. The room fell silent for a moment before Smith went on to take other questions. Senator Hubert Humphrey felt Smith’s speech was so important that he gave a brief synopsis, addressed to President Nixon; both his comments and the text of Smith’s speech (minus reference to cooperative education) were entered into the US Congressional Record (Humphrey 1973). Bringing the NAE Onboard About two weeks after the meeting at Crotonville, Saline of GE went to see Pierre. Meanwhile, Saline had consulted with other engineering deans and then conveyed to others at GE that Pierre’s concern was widespread. As a result, GE concluded that, while financial aid for minority engineering students was a vital component of the solution, the problem was bigger than that and needed to be addressed beginning with pre-college preparation and throughout the pipeline of engineering education. GE reasoned that, to be successful, GE and other industrial partners could offer funding but would need to find a respected partner organization knowledgeable about engineering education to lead the effort. Reginald Jones assigned Saline the task of finding that organization. After being turned down by a couple of potential partners, Saline asked Pierre to join his quest. The first organization they approached as a pair said no. Next on their list was the National Academy of Engineering. Saline and Pierre approached Robert Marshall, the chair of the NAE Committee on Education. Saline explained that GE and its industrial partners were ready to fund a national effort to increase the number of minority engineering graduates and outlined what he had in mind: They wanted the NAE to provide leadership in the creation and operation of programs to prepare minority students for careers in engineering, beginning with K–12 students. Marshall was slow to warm up to the idea, and he replied that the NAE charter included being an advisor to the federal government but the NAE did not in general operate programs; it did studies and held meetings on national issues affecting the field of engineering. The NAE, both an honorific organization and an advisory organization, was founded in 1964 to provide the US government with independent advice on national issues involving engineering and technology. With its focus on engineering education, the NAE would go on to be an ideal partner organization in the minority engineering effort. As Saline and Pierre suggested alternative ideas to Marshall, they noticed that his assistant, Mrs. Jean P. Moore, seemed interested in what they were saying. And when Pierre asked whether it would be possible for the NAE to organize a symposium, she piped up, “Oh yes, we can do that!” Marshall agreed. Reginald Jones of GE followed up with a phone call to Robert Seamans to confirm NAE support of the symposium and elicited a promise to discuss GE’s larger vision after the symposium. Mrs. Moore was called on to organize the symposium. The minority engineering effort is an example of how, with strong leadership, a seemingly intractable problem can be solved with a systems approach. The NAE Symposium on Minorities in Engineering was held in 1973 (NRC 1973) to review the system of engineering education and the role of minorities in that system. Pierre and Saline agreed that the symposium would be the first step, not the last. Pierre chaired the planning committee for the symposium and gave the opening address. The symposium was attended by 231 representatives of universities, industry, the federal government, and other interested organizations. The symposium presented many recommendations for addressing the problem. It also supported GE’s request that the NAE take the lead in this effort by establishing an action-oriented CEO-level advisory committee to the NAE and a working committee that industry would support. That was the next step. Robert Seamans, who had recently become president of the NAE, was previously the secretary of the US Air Force and, before that, an administrator of NASA. He recognized that the NAE was primarily an organization that did studies. The proposal to improve the K–12 education of minority students on a national scale was very different. The symposium participants and GE wanted more than advice. They also wanted to follow through and create a national leadership organization. The Establishment of NACME About a week after the symposium, Bob Seamans asked to meet with Pierre to review the results of the symposium. He had decided to accept the recommendation of the symposium and establish a National Advisory Council on Minorities in Engineering (NACME). Reginald Jones had agreed to chair the committee, bring along his industrial colleagues, and provide financial support to the NAE and to the programs generated by this effort. Key members of NACME came from attendees of GE’s meeting at Crotonville, the Business Roundtable that Jones chaired, presidents of major universities, and government officials. Although this was called an advisory committee, the members of NACME were expected to be active participants in the programs encouraged by NACME. For example, Fr. Theodore Heaburgh, then president of the University of Notre Dame, would later be critical in establishing the GEM Fellowship Program, which offers fellowships to minority engineering students seeking master’s degrees. While the political and legal landscape has changed, what has remained constant is the national need for a large, diverse, and talented engineering workforce. The NAE announced the creation of NACME in 1973, with its first meeting taking place in January 1974. Later, Reg Jones promised $400,000 per year from GE and its corporate partners to support the NAE’s efforts (Miranda and Ruiz 1986). In 2024 dollars, that is nearly $3M per year. This money was to support hiring staff and conducting appropriate studies and meetings. The funds would also support programs created by this effort (Saline 1974). The NAE also decided to create an internal operational committee, the Committee on Minorities in Engineering, initially chaired by Richard Grosch (Grosch 1974). Later this committee was chaired by Arthur Hansen, then president of Purdue University, and co-chaired by Pierre. Arthur Hansen would later work with his African American engineering students at Purdue in their effort to create the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).[3] Since NACME was a CEO-dominated group, fundraising for NAE support was relatively easy. Reg Jones would usually schedule a NACME meeting on the same day as his meeting of the Business Roundtable that he chaired. He would take a couple hours off his Roundtable meeting to have the NACME meeting, and he would bring along some colleagues from the Business Roundtable meeting. At the NACME meeting, he would go around the table soliciting funds from the corporations present. Surely this was all prearranged, but it was impressive nonetheless. The Sloan Foundation After the NAE announced the creation of NACME, the Sloan Foundation, under the leadership of President Nils Wessel, decided to create a special program for minorities in engineering and committed 20–25% of its annual grant funding over five to seven years to this effort. This was a $12M to $15M commitment, worth about $80M to $100M today (Blackwell 198; Lusterman 1979; Pierre 1975, 2015). Robert Kriedler, a VP of the Sloan Foundation, said that without the commitment of industry and the NAE, Sloan would not have done this. He felt the problem was too large for Sloan funds alone to have a meaningful impact. Sloan had been a supporter of the 1973 Symposium on Minorities in Engineering. One of Sloan’s vice presidents, Arthur Singer, attended the symposium and knew the background of the establishment of NACME. The Sloan Foundation had long supported educational efforts for minorities. In the 1960s, they established scholarship programs for minorities in medicine and minorities in master of business administration programs. While they had a longstanding interest in engineering, they decided that, given their limited resources, a scholarship program for minorities in engineering would have limited impact. Pierre, still the dean of engineering at Howard University at the time, was asked by the Sloan Foundation to become a half-time program officer for the newly established program. The coalition composed of GE, the Business Roundtable, the NAE, and the Sloan Foundation was in place. Almost all of the companies of the corporate members of NACME expanded their minority engineering programs. After the Sloan Foundation announced its new program, it received many unsolicited proposals — many from the people who had attended the NAE Symposium on Minorities in Engineering. To fund these proposals would have been business as usual. Rather, Sloan decided to take a systems approach, familiar to Pierre, who had previously worked at the RAND Corporation, which had pioneered this approach to social problems. The first step was a systems analysis. The second step was to fund consortia of organizations to address different parts of the problem. This systems approach was coordinated with the NAE and the industrial partners through NACME. Almost all of the programs created by the Sloan Foundation assumed industrial funding, which Pierre coordinated with Lindon Saline. Also, the Sloan Foundation supported programs at universities with the understanding that these programs would also receive university funding. Many also received state funding. The understanding was that increasing the number of minority engineering graduates would benefit all participants, so all should contribute to this effort. A Blueprint for Action In 1974, the Sloan Foundation had a very good analysis of the problem provided by the GE strategic analysis and the NAE Symposium of Minorities in Engineering. While everyone agreed on the goal of the program, to significantly increase minority engineering graduates, there were questions about whether the goal was financially feasible with the funding currently committed by the Sloan Foundation and industry. To address this question and others, the Sloan Foundation sponsored a study to address the financial feasibility of the effort and, if possible, the design of programs. Lindon Saline was part of this study. When completed, the study was presented to NACME for their comments and suggestions. This is an example of the coordination among the Sloan Foundation, the NAE, and industry. The study, A Blueprint for Action, was led by Louis Padulo, an engineering professor at Stanford University (PCEMOE 1974). Lou led a program at Stanford to graduate minorities with master’s degrees in engineering. Previously, while a graduate student at Georgia Tech, he helped create a dual-degree engineering program between the historically Black colleges and universities in Atlanta and Georgia Tech. A Blueprint for Action laid out the direction that Sloan would take and argued that a significant impact was possible with the funding available from the Sloan Foundation and industry under the assumption that universities and industry would provide additional financial support for the foreseeable future. The study said that priority should be given to pre-college programs while seeking impactful interventions at all points of the engineering educational pipeline including pre-college, college, and graduate school, and Sloan followed those recommendations. As Pierre described in a personal biography, Sloan, wishing to influence as many students as possible, was careful to fund program proposals that they believed would be sustainable even after the initial Sloan funding expired.[4] Sloan had a venture capital approach in supporting high-risk ventures that had the potential to attract many other investors that would sustain the program and have a 50-year impact. The programs created by this effort, described below, had a significant impact, particularly on increasing the number of African American students in engineering education. Pre-college Programs In the early 1970s, very few engineering colleges had access to pre-college programs to recruit minority students. The few that did include Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Alabama. Sloan initiated grants to change that. The Big Ten+ Consortium has some of the biggest engineering schools in the country. Some had initiated minority engineering programs. Sloan promised to add funds for a limited time if these schools would work together to greatly expand their engineering pre-college programs. They could also expect funds from industry, for which minorities in engineering had become a high priority. Many of these colleges of engineering established minority engineering offices to manage these programs. Other colleges established similar programs. An indication of the success of this effort was the establishment of a national association of minority program directors called the National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA). NAMEPA currently has 28 member institutions. The Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) program originated as an in-school club at Oakland Tech High School in Oakland, California. It was started by Mary Smith, a math and science teacher at the school, who wanted to encourage more African American students to enroll in her math classes. Engineering faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, worked with her to bring in industrial funding and organize field trips. The faculty at UC Berkeley wanted to expand the program to three other high schools in the Berkeley, California, area. Sloan provided expansion funding. Subsequently, the program spread throughout California and other states with state funding.[5] At the request of the Sloan Foundation, Joseph Petit, then president of Georgia Tech, organized the South East Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME) to work with science teachers.[6] In 1974, the Houston Independent School District was planning to start a new magnet school focused on technology. Their purpose was to attract more minority students to their very successful group of magnet schools. Sloan convinced them to create a magnet school focused on engineering, the High School for the Engineering Professions, and to place it in the predominantly minority Booker T. Washington High School. Sloan provided a planning grant for the design of the program.[7] Industrial funding followed. The program has continued to graduate minority students well prepared for engineering careers. College Program While pre-college was a priority, creating more scholarships for minorities was a necessity, as identified in the GE analysis and A Blueprint for Action. The National Scholarship Fund for Minority Engineering Students (NSFMES) was started in 1974. The NAE created a non-profit organization to host the fund. Stanley Smith chaired the non-profit. Pierre served on its board and Sloan funded its administrative needs, with the understanding that all scholarship funds would come from industry. When NACME spun off from the NAE, it incorporated NSFMES into its organization. Graduate Program The Sloan Foundation asked Theodore Hesburgh, then president of the University of Notre Dame and a member of NACME, to call a meeting of universities interested in increasing their minority engineering enrollments at the master’s level. Also invited were representatives of high-tech companies, including NACME companies, and non-profit defense R&D firms. Arthur Singer and Pierre presented a plan for an organization, Graduate Education for Minorities (GEM), [8] to increase minority engineering graduates at the master’s level. It required contributions from all at the meeting. The Sloan Foundation would provide funding for the initial organizations. The companies would provide a partial fellowship and a summer internship at the company. The universities would provide additional funds for a fully funded fellowship. The benefit to all was that GEM would recruit students for this opportunity and greatly increase the number of minority engineering graduates at the master’s level. Joseph Hogan, then dean of engineering at Notre Dame, wrote the proposal to Sloan to establish the program at the University of Notre Dame. He led the GEM program until he hired Howard Adams to run it. Ted Hesburg nurtured the program throughout his tenure as president. Related Activities In addition to the programs created by the Sloan Foundation, the activities of NACME and its supporting companies spurred many more activities. Almost all of these activities were supported by the companies of NACME. The National Society of Black Engineers, founded in 1975. Arthur Hansen―then president of Purdue, a member of NACME, and chair of the Committee on Minorities in Engineering―supported his Black engineering students when they decided to form a local Black engineering society, the Black Society of Engineers, in 1971. These students later founded the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).[9] Their annual meetings attract over 15,000 attendees annually. The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), [10] founded in 1974. MAES, founded in 1974 as Mexican American Engineering Society, now Latinos in Science and Engineering.[11] The American Indian Science & Engineering Society, [12] founded in 1977. The Society of Women Engineers[13] was founded in 1950 but expanded by an order of magnitude during the 1970s, from 1,100 members in 1970 to 9,600 members (including both women and men) in 1980. The newly founded organizations and other recommendations of A Blueprint for Action took several years to influence new cohorts of engineering graduates. Figure 1 shows growth throughout the 1955–95 interval in the number of new African American engineering bachelor’s degree graduates per year, with a sharp increase in slope after the late 1970s as the first cohort to benefit reached college graduation age. Of course, the significant progress depicted in figure 1 cannot all be ascribed to the minority programs started in the 1970s. For example, beginning in the 1980s, the National Science Foundation launched many programs designed to increase minority graduates in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Corporations and universities did likewise. However, the discussion initiated by the authors of A Blueprint for Action and the subsequent programs launched in the 1970s were a significant impetus for this advance. Conclusions In 1972–73, a discussion initiated by GE at its Crotonville Education Center and continued at a symposium hosted by the NAE marked the beginning of the minority engineering effort. Although the titles of both of these initial gatherings used the term minorities, in fact, the focus was on African Americans since the discussion was largely a response to the civil rights movement and affirmative action mandates of the Nixon administration. However, it can be argued that the minority engineering effort—joined by representatives of large engineering employers, the NAE, the Sloan Foundation, academia, and the federal government—and its focus on improving US education systems to fully utilize talent eventually led to national policies that increased the engineering and science representation of other minorities and women. While we have made great progress over the last 50 years, we still have a long way to go. While the political and legal landscape has changed, what has remained constant is the national need for a large, diverse, and talented engineering workforce. As the US population becomes more diverse, it is even more important that we access the talents of this increasingly diverse population. A recent meeting hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and funded by Sloan, produced a list of recommendations to help the leadership of individual campuses navigate equity and inclusion in the new legal environment (AAAS 2024). Additional insights might be drawn from the more systemic approach taken by the early visionaries of the minority engineering effort. The lessons of the past can be useful in addressing this national need. References AAAS [American Academy of Arts and Sciences]. 2024. Leading for a Future of Higher Education Equity: Transforming Supreme Court Challenges into Opportunities for Positive Change. Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Blackwell JE. 1981. Mainstreaming Outsiders: The Production of Black Professionals. Bayside, New York: General Hall. Grosch RJ. 1974. Report of the committee on minorities in engineering. In: Reports of the Chairmen, NAE Advisory Units, to the Academy Membership: Proceedings of the Technical Session at the Tenth Annual Meeting, May 2 and 3, 1974, 125–27. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Online at nap.nationalacademies.org/read/20186/chapter/15. Humphrey H. 1973. A Tenfold Increase in Minority Engineers—A Civil Rights Challenge for the Seventies. US Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 93rd Congress, Jan 12, 1973, 1040–43. 93rd Congress, 1st sess., v.119:pt.34 (1973:Jan 3/Dec 22). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Lusterman S. 1979. Minorities in Engineering: The Corporate Role. New York, NY. The Conference Board. Miranda L, Ruiz E. 1986. NACME Statistical Report 1986. National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. New York. NRC [National Research Council]. 1973. Proceedings of Symposium on Increasing Minority Participation in Engineering. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Pierre PA. 1973 Minorities in engineering. In: Minorities in Engineering, Proceedings of a Meeting of the Engineering Manpower Commission of Engineers Joint Council, November 30, 1972. New York: Engineers Joint Council. Pierre PA. 1975. Keynote address: Minority program directors’ workshop. In: Proceedings of a Workshop for Program Directors in Engineering Education of Minorities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Pierre PA. 2015. A brief history of the collaborative minority engineering effort: A personal account. In: Changing the Face of Engineering: The African American Experience, 13–36. Slaughter JB, Tao Y, Pearson W Jr, eds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. PCEMOE [Planning Commission for Expanding Minority Opportunities in Engineering]. 1974. Minorities in Engineering: A Blueprint for Action. New York: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Saline LE. 1974. Guest editorial: A national effort to increase minority engineering graduates. IEEE Transactions on Education 17(1):1–2. Weinberger CJ. 2018. Engineering educational opportunity: Impacts of 1970s and 1980s policies to increase the share of Black college graduates with major in engineering or computer science. In: U.S. Engineering in a Global Economy, 87–128. Freeman RB, Salzman H, eds. University of Chicago Press. [1] See https://ira.asee.org/by-the-numbers/ and https://undark.org/2020/09/11/after-years-of-gains-black- stem-representation-is-falling-why/. [2] GE acknowledges the leadership that Reginald Jones provided for minorities in engineering as a highlight of its more than 150-year history. See www.ge.com/ge-history. [3] nsbe.org/home/about/ [4] depts.washington.edu/celtweb/pioneers-wp/?p=571 [5] See mesausa.org/ and mesausa.org/mesa-history/. [6] See www.eng.ufl.edu/secme/. [7] See www.houstonisd.org/domain/22409 [8] https://www.gemfellowship.org/ [9] https://nsbe.org/home/about/ [10] https://shpe.org/about-shpe/the-story-of-shpe/ [11] https://mymaes.org/about-us/ [12] https://aises.org/ [13] https://swe.org/ and https://alltogether.swe.org/2020/05/celebrating-70-years- of-swe About the Author:Percy A. Pierre (NAE) is Glenn L. Martin Endowed Adjunct Professor, the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the founding chairman of the NAE’s Racial Justice and Equity Committee. Catherine J. Weinberger is a research associate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research, affiliated with the Broom Center for Demography and the Department of Economics.