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Introduction

Increasing the number of Black men and Black women¹ who enter the fields of science, engineering, and medicine (SEM)² will benefit the social and economic health of the nation (Jemison, 2019; NASEM, 2011). Despite the need, Black SEM representation has not significantly grown in more than three decades. Increasingly it is recognized that both individual and structural barriers must be addressed, beginning in the early years of schooling and extending to graduate education and beyond into the workforce. It is a journey, as suggested by the title of the workshop on this topic convened by the Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The workshop, held virtually May 2–3, 2022, highlighted promising financial and supportive services and programs throughout various stages of career development. Sessions followed student progression through the major stages of education and career development,

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¹ This proceedings refers to Black men and Black women (or African American, a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa) in the descriptions and distinctions made by workshop speakers and during the panel discussions. In instances where the speakers or discussants refer to “minorities,” whether the person or population in question is “non-Black” is noted. References made to “historically underrepresented” people refer to people of all Black, Indigenous, and Latine backgrounds. “People of color” is a term sometimes used in this proceedings to refer to any non-white person.

² Throughout this proceedings, in addition to the SEM acronym, workshop speakers also refer to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) in their presentations.

and identified policies and practices that aim to mitigate and alleviate long-standing barriers to the full participation of Black students in SEM at the K–12, undergraduate, and graduate and professional levels.

This proceedings of the workshop highlights examples of collaborative higher education programs, such as the Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence, that broaden participation through institutional change and capacity building. These programs have diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultural goals and practices front and center. The proceedings only present a portion of the institutions and organizations that can broaden and support Black SEM participation. Illuminating other institutions and organizations, addressing existing long-standing barriers, and holding society and institutions accountable for change are all part of a continuous process.

OPENING REMARKS

Welcome from the Roundtable Chair

Roundtable chair Cato Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. (University of Connecticut), opened the workshop by welcoming the participants and encouraging them to explore the full journey, from childhood onward, that can obstruct or support Black men and Black women from entering and advancing in careers in SEM.

Context for the Workshop

To set the context for the workshop convened by the Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in SEM, Dr. Laurencin explained the mission of the Roundtable and its activities to date. The goal, he said, is “to understand issues impacting Black men and Black women in science, engineering, and medicine and to create new ideas for solutions, especially solutions utilizing the strengths of having Black men and Black women in these fields.” The Roundtable first met in December 2019. Dr. Laurencin thanked members for their leadership and participation in issue-related action groups: Racism and (Conscious and Unconscious) Bias, Financing, Stakeholder Engagement, Mentoring and Advising, PreK–Graduate Education, COVID-19, and Systemic Change to Overcome Psychological Barriers to Success. The action groups foster information gathering and development of evidence-based approaches; engage with key stakeholders and the broader community of scientists, clinicians, engineers, and administrators; and

design and conduct workshops and other activities for meaningful change. Over the past several years, the groups have organized numerous workshops, beginning with a workshop in April 2020 on the effects of racism and bias on Black people pursuing careers in SEM.³ Near the 2-year anniversary of the Roundtable in December 2021, a capstone workshop was held on the state of anti-Black racism in U.S. science, engineering, and medicine. A “Living Legends” series began with a series of conversations with Louis Sullivan, M.D., and Shirley Malcom, Ph.D. Dr. Laurencin thanked the Roundtable sponsors, including foundations, government, private corporations, and universities.

He noted the current workshop was organized to focus on supporting Black students throughout their educational and professional lives (see Box 1-1). Students, university presidents, industry representatives, professional society leaders, and others were asked to contribute to the discussion.

Congressional Support

Dr. Laurencin introduced Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and highlighted how her experience as a student shaped her political and professional life. As president of the Black Student Union at Mills College, she invited Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) to campus. She became active in Rep. Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign and went on to become an active community and business leader in the San Francisco Bay Area community. She was the first African American woman elected to the California State Senate from Northern California. In 1998, she was elected to the U.S. Congress and is now the highest-ranking Black woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has been a strong supporter of the Roundtable and instrumental in organizing briefings and other events between the Roundtable and the Congressional Black Caucus.

In recorded remarks, Rep. Lee thanked the members of the Roundtable for their work in addressing barriers in systems of care, education, workforce, and other settings. She said,

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³ For more information on the work of the Roundtable, see https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/05-02-2022/supporting-black-students-through-their-sem-career-journeys-a-workshop.

As a senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. Lee has helped lead efforts by Congress to provide funding for initiatives related to greater participation of Black Americans in SEM. Over the past four appropriations cycles, this has included the development of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) action plan to address the increasing underrepresentation of Black men in medical schools and in the medical profession, based on the review of the National Academies report on this issue (NASEM, 2018). She also called attention to the allocation of increased

resources, through the NIH Common Fund, for programs such as the Diversity Program Consortium and the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation Program.⁴

Remarks by the Co-Chairs

Workshop co-chair Lynne Holden, M.D. (Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Mentoring in Medicine, Inc.), added her welcome. To explain the motivation behind the workshop, she noted that a study of first-year matriculating U.S. medical students conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that over a 30-year span, the top two household quintiles contributed between 73 to 79 percent of all matriculants each year, while an average of 5 percent of respondents have come from the lowest quintile. “There is an overrepresentation of the highest income and an underrepresentation of the lowest income among matriculants to medical school,” Dr. Holden stated. “Students should receive a vast array of resources, including financial, academic, social, emotional, mentoring, and parental support, in order to support them along the journey to their career.”

Workshop co-chair Louis Sullivan, M.D. (Sullivan Alliance), underscored the need to increase diversity in health professions. He stated: “The importance is rooted in our nation’s history. Our nation was founded with high principles of equal opportunity, the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The reality is that we as a nation have never fulfilled those principles, never lived up to them fully. The encouraging aspect is we have as a nation worked toward them.” Dr. Sullivan reminded participants of the Flexner Report from 1910. While the report called for a larger scientific basis for medical education, it cut off opportunities for Black physicians by closing five of the seven predominantly Black medical schools at the time. At the time of the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education,⁵ as a result of the history of segregation, 2 percent of U.S. physicians were Black.

Dr. Sullivan recalled entering medical school at Boston University in 1954 as the only Black student in his class. Programs in the 1960s attempted to roll back segregation, and a number of new medical schools opened in the second half of the twentieth century. Overall, the numbers

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⁴ These programs were discussed later in the workshop; see Chapter 5.

⁵ Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al., 347 U.S. 483.

of medical students graduating each year increased from 8,000 nationwide in the 1950s to 16,000 in the 1980s. The percentage of Black students increased from 2 percent to about 8 percent, while the percentage of Black physicians is 5 percent and medical student faculty is 5 to 6 percent. Yet, Black men and Black women are 13 percent of the U.S. population, other non-Black minority populations have increased in the past few decades, and Native Americans are very sparsely represented. He continued:

Becoming a health professional today requires adequate financial resources. As a medical student in the 1950s, he recounted, financial support was not the major challenge that it is today. High levels of student debt are counterproductive if graduates are under great pressure to reduce that debt, he said. They are diverted from primary care or toward affluent communities. Dr. Sullivan concluded, “We will be successful if we are able to broaden the pipeline of young people from diverse backgrounds going into the health professions and improve the way that we finance a medical education.” He welcomed the workshop as a way to explore these issues.

Keynote Address

Freeman Hrabowski, Ph.D. (University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC]), underscored the significance of the Roundtable and the recognition that the National Academies created a way to focus on Black men and Black women. “There are times when it is good to talk of underrepresented groups, but there is also a need to bring specificity to the conversation,” Dr. Hrabowski said. “COVID-19 has given us the oppor-

tunity to have a light shining on inequality and how to reshape the culture of society.”

He noted the Roundtable’s previous workshops on financial barriers, educational pathways, and other topics. He was a member of a committee in a 2011 National Academies consensus report, chaired by Peter Henderson, Ph.D., that found the percentage of new Ph.D.’s awarded to African Americans stood at 2.2 percent (NASEM, 2011). In an article in Issues in Science and Technology (Hrabowski and Henderson, 2019), Dr. Hrabowski and Dr. Henderson noted the percentage of new Ph.D.’s awarded to African Americans was 2.3 percent. “The theme of the challenge is how to move the needle,” he asserted.

In a 2013 TED talk titled “Four Pillars of College Success in Science”⁶ and through his work developing the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC, Dr. Hrabowski shared several lessons for success. They include setting high expectations, promoting enthusiasm for research early, developing a community of people who work together, enabling scientists to produce scientists, providing financial and emotional support, and conducting rigorous evaluation. While he celebrated UMBC graduate Kizzmekia Corbett, Ph.D., as the first Black woman in the world to create a vaccine, he also noted the need to have a pipeline of students, rather than focus on exceptions.

To do that, preK–12 teacher preparation is important, especially for middle school science and math. He noted that UMBC is involved in several programs with Lakeland Middle School. He urged setting expectations early so that students are prepared to graduate with a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree in 4 to 5 years and to enter graduate school. He challenged universities to examine their role. “Universities must be empowered to look in the mirror and be honest,” he said, referring to the many students who intend to major in a STEM subject but then change majors. “What can happen at the institutional cultural level so more students continue [majoring in STEM]?”

The UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars Program has been replicated at Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). These programs have been able to show that with broad participation from faculty and leadership, more can be accomplished. One challenge is to have

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⁶ To view a recording of the talk, see https://www.ted.com/talks/freeman_hrabowski_4_pillars_of_college_success_in_science.

more historically underrepresented staff members of color, but it is also critical that those with power—the president, provost, deans, and senior faculty—make it a priority and commit to success. If the 30 baccalaureate institutions that currently produce the greatest number of Black doctoral students doubled their Black student enrollment, Dr. Hrabowski observed, there would be a 30-plus percent increase within a decade. He suggested focusing on how to do that, such as by increasing the number of faculty of color. A program similar to the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE, which has been ongoing since 2001 to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers, may be a way to do that.⁷

Students need mentors, but they also need champions or advocates who will knock down doors for them and help them move toward becoming independent investigators and tenured faculty. He said he was encouraged by HHMI’s $2 billion initiative that seeks to influence academic science at critical stages from undergraduate through tenured faculty to meaningfully advance inclusion and equity.⁸

Foundations and federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and NIH, as well as professional societies and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, can build coherence and coordination. “Look at what is working, to pull together the people who are making a difference and move the needle,” he concluded. “Let’s build on our strengths; there is more to do.”

ORGANIZATION OF THIS PROCEEDINGS

The remainder of this publication summarizes the presentations from the workshop. Chapter 2 captures the voices of six students or recent graduates who shared their perspectives from their lived experience about the systems that worked or are needed. Chapter 3 considers the effects of early engagement and local environments in K–12. Chapter 4 encompasses two sessions on postsecondary institutions, at the undergraduate and professional/graduate levels, that can broaden and strengthen the pipeline. Entering the workforce is the focus in Chapter 5 with the sessions on employment and on professional societies. Chapter 6 focuses on financial

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⁷ For more information, see https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/advance/.

⁸ For more information, see https://www.hhmi.org/news/hhmi-launches-2-billion-10-year-investment-advance-diversity-and-inclusion-science.

support, both to facilitate individual student success and to strengthen institutions and systems through external financing. The workshop agenda and biographical sketches of the speakers can be found in the Appendixes.

In accordance with the policies of the National Academies, workshop participants did not attempt to establish any conclusions or recommendations about needs and future directions, focusing instead on issues discussed by the speakers and workshop participants. In addition, the planning committee’s role was limited to planning the workshop. This proceedings was prepared by a rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.

REFERENCES

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