A Face of Few Colors

Ethnic diversification has been on Harvard's agenda for years and, while the University has succeeded in increasing diversity in its student body some academic fields still report considerably low involvement among some minority groups.

In particular, Harvard's math, computer and science-related departments, while perennially graduating a large number of Asian and Asian-American concentrators, show a disproportionately low turnout among black, Latino and other non-Asian minority students compared to the student body as a whole.

But there does not seem to be a consensus among Harvard faculty members and administrators over what should be done to reverse this trend, or even whether anything can be done.

Dean of the College and McKay Professor of Computer Science Harry R. Lewis '68 says that despite his efforts to encourage their interest, black and Latino student turnout in his classes remains less than promising.

"There are not as many black and Hispanic students in my classes as I would like," Lewis writes in an e-mail message. "I have for years tried to support and encourage those members of underrepresented minority groups who I do find in my courses to go into the field."

Similarly, S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, writes in an e-mail message that his organization has for years championed the goal of increasing minority participation in the sciences.

To this end, the Foundation holds a two-day conference every year to pique minority interest in the sciences.

Known as the Annual Science Conference, the event's objectives include encouraging minority students and women, another underrepresented group in scientific fields, to pursue careers in science, Counter writes.

Counter, who is also an associate professor of neurology, says this conference "involves over 50 undergraduate students of all races and cultural backgrounds."

Each conference also features "a nationally known keynote speaker," according to Counter. Past speakers have included Jaime Escalante, the calculus teacher whose story served as the basis for the movie Stand and Deliver and Mae Jemsion, the first black female astronaut.

According to Counter, "Dean Lewis and President [Neil L.] Rudenstine have supported the Foundation's...efforts to encourage minority students to enter the field of science."

But not all bodies in Harvard have made minority participation in the sciences as high a priority as the Foundation has.

Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70-'73 says her office makes no special exceptions for minority applicants who express an interest in a scientific field.

"We don't try to match up categories," she says. "Also, we're smart enough to know that many students change their concentrations."

"But we do encourage both strong science students and strong minority students to apply," Lewis adds.

And many administrators in Harvard's science departments, while reporting underrepresentation of non-Asian minority students in their respective fields, present contrasting ideas about how to increase participation among those groups.

Inside the Numbers

According to James E. Davis, head tutor for chemistry concentrators, 40 students will graduate with degrees in chemistry this year--among them 14 Asian or Asian-American students, one black student and one Latino student. Davis called this a "typical" year.

Inside the Numbers

"There aren't a large number of African-American and Hispanic students concentrating in chemistry," Davis says. "Maybe one or two per year."

Compare these numbers to the College as a whole, which is roughly 43 percent white, 17 percent Asian or Asian-American, 8 percent black and 8 percent Latino--with 16 percent of students' race unknown.

"But, ultimately, it is the choice of the students, themselves," he says.

Margaret Law, head tutor for physics, reported a similar situation.

"There are large numbers of Asians, but not very many African-Americans or Hispanics," she says.

Law was unable to provide undergraduate statistics for this year's senior class, but she says only 2 out of 120 graduate students in her department are non-Asian minorities.

The chemistry and physics departments are no exceptions to the rule--while the proportion of Asian-American students in most science and math concentrations exceeds 17 percent, the proportions of blacks and Latinos tend to lag behind their respective College-wide figures.

Solution in Sight?

While several departments can point to ways in which they try to encourage non-Asian minority students to join their concentration, some say they don't know how they can affect the situation.

Davis says he tries to make extra help available for all students in the chemistry department to "make it as user-friendly as a physical science can be" so as not to discourage potential concentrators in general.

He did not, however, mention any efforts specifically targeted towards minority students.

The American Physics Society, in an effort to improve physics participation among black and Latino students, offers awards and scholarships to members of those groups who concentrate in physics, but Law says she hasn't seen any significant results at Harvard.

"We don't have many [black or Latino students], and I don't know what to do about it," Law says.

Steven J. Gortler, director of undergraduate studies for computer science, says his program offers a fellowship for minority students, and other departments report similar scholarships for minorities.

Despite these incentives, representation in sciences among non-Asian minorities has far from equalized.

According to John Hutchinson, associate dean of academic programs in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, while there is little the departments can do to encourage minority involvement, students sometimes take the initiative in encouraging their peers.

"Some minority students do quite a good job of reaching out to their classmates and incoming freshmen to encourage them to join [the engineering program]," he says.

Peer mentoring, for example, is one of the services provided by the Harvard Society of Black Scientists and Engineers (HSBSE).

The group's president, Jason E. Williams '01, a pre-med student, says its goal is to "foster a sense of community among black scientists."

HSBSE also offers tutoring for the MCAT examination for students applying to medical school.

A Select Group

Shearwood "Woody" McClelland '00, a biology concentrator and the Former President of the Black Men's Forum (BMF), says there are a number of reasons for the shortage of black students in math and the sciences--including Harvard's mostly white legacy in the sciences.

"At the Biological Labs, the walls have only portraits of white men," McClelland says. "That can be discouraging."

He says many black students are instead drawn to economics as a major because members of the black community, especially, are encouraged to make money and increase their "prestige."

He says prestige is also a factor that encourages blacks who do concentrate in the sciences to go into medicine rather than pursue graduate degrees or other careers--Law's graduate statistics seem to confirm this notion.

Davis also says that, although the proportion of non-Asian minority chemistry concentrators is already low, the proportions among graduate students in chemistry is even lower.

Davis says "minorities interested in science seem to gravitate toward medicine."

According to Lewis, the field of computer science sees a similar problem with concentrators tending to enter the business rather than academia--which results in a small number of black and Latino computer science professors.

"Many of those [concentrators] wind up on the business side rather than on the academic side, so the number of black or Hispanic faculty in computer science is extremely small nationally," he writes.