Excerpt

The workshop on Minorities in the Chemical Workforce: Diversity Models that Work brought together leaders in chemistry and chemical engineering from government, industry, academia, and the not-for-profit sector to gather information and explore approaches that would optimize participation by the full range of intellectual talent in the chemical workforce. Its primary focus was to expose the participants, primarily chemists and chemical engineers from all sectors, to examples of successful efforts to recruit and retain minorities—at the undergraduate level, in graduate programs, and in the chemical workforce. The focus was practical and realistic needs of institutions and opportunities for minorities in the chemical sciences. The workshop explored opportunities and challenges for transferring the prior successes into a variety of new settings in which those trained in the chemical sciences are employed.

Contents

• The National Academies
• Chemical Sciences Roundtable
• Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology
• Preface
• Acknowledgment of Reviewers
• Summary
  • CONTEXT AND OVERVIEW
  • UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE EDUCATION
  • THE CHEMICAL WORKFORCE
• 1. Diversity: Why Is It Important and How Can It Be Achieved?
  • THE NEED FOR MINORITY RESEARCHERS
  • MAKING FAIR SELECTIONS
  • AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE PROCESS
  • MAKING A DIFFERENCE
  • DISCUSSION
• 2. Preparing College Students for a Diverse Democracy
  • SKILLS FOR A DIVERSE WORKFORCE
  • A THEORY OF DIVERSITY AND LEARNING
  • EMPIRICALLY TESTING THEORY
  • EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
  • DISCUSSION
  • REFERENCES
• 3. An HBCU Perspective
  • BACKGROUND INFORMATION
  • DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHEMISTRY PROGRAM
  • SUCCESS FACTORS
  • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • DISCUSSION
• 4. Reports from the Breakout Sessions
• 5. The Meyerhoff Undergraduate Scholars Program
  • DISCUSSION
• 6. The Imperative for Leaders and Organizations
  • DISCUSSION
• 7. Beating the Odds: Preparing Minorities for Research Careers in the Chemical Sciences
• 8. Reports from the Breakout Sessions
  • DISCUSSION
• 9. Diversity in the Industrial R&D Workforce: Challenges and Strategies
  • WHAT IS DIVERSITY?
  • DIVERSITY AT P&G: A CORPORATE PERSPECTIVE
  • THE R&D ISSUE: UNDERREPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES IN SCIENCE
  • ATTRACTING STUDENTS TO SCIENCE
  • RECRUIT, REWARD, RECOGNIZE, AND RETAIN
  • DISCUSSION
• 10. Recruiting and Advancing Minority Scientists: Doing It Right
  • INTRODUCTION
  • THE BUSINESS VALUE OF DIVERSITY
  • KEY STEPS IN ACHIEVING DIVERSITY
  • DEVELOPMENT
  • DISCUSSION
• 11. General Discussion
  • CLOSING REMARKS
• Appendixes
  • A Workshop Participants
  • B Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers
  • C Origin of and Information on the Chemical Sciences Roundtable

This study was supported by the Research Corporation under Grant No. GG0066, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation under Grant No. SG-00-094 and SG-02-025, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Grant No. NA1341-01-W-1098, the U.S. Department of Defense under Grant No. MDA-972-01-M-0038, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Grant No. R-82823201, the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CHE-000778, the National Institutes of Health under Contract No. N01-OD-4-2139, and the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG02-95ER14556.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.