Universities employ few Black chemists

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The country's top universities employ few minority group members as chemistry professors and have not hired a Black chemistry faculty member in 10 years, a study shows.

Scientists and university officials say schools aren't ignoring minority applicants - there aren't enough of them.

The top 50 chemistry departments employ only 30 nonforeign-born Black, Hispanic and American Indian chemistry professors, the University of Oklahoma study found. That's fewer than 2 percent of 1,637 faculty on the tenure track.

The study also found that the most recently hired Black American faculty member among the 50 departments received his doctorate in 1990, even though the number of Blacks receiving doctorates in chemistry doubled from 1990 to 1999, said the study's author, University of Oklahoma chemistry Professor Donna Nelson.

"It's terrible what has happened in this country," said Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, a former physics professor and a former member of the House's Committee on Science. "We throw away almost 40 percent of our work force."

Minority scientists tend to be hired by industries, which often pay more than universities.

"Industry is doing a lot better job than the academic community," said Donald Burland, acting director of the National Science Foundation's chemistry division.

Businesses seek minority employees at inner-city universities and historically Black colleges, while universities look for tenure-track professors at predominantly white schools such as Harvard University and the University of Chicago, he said.

The Oklahoma study found the top 50 chemistry departments employed 14 Hispanic, 13 Black and three American Indian chemistry professors who were educated in the United States. Asian-Americans are not underrepresented and were not reported in the study.

The University of Oklahoma has 20 chemistry professors. One is Black. Nelson, who is one-quarter American Indian, said she was "astonished. I expected to find a low number of African-American assistant professors. I did not expect to find none."

Nelson's students surveyed the chemistry departments and received data from all except Stanford University, which declined to participate. They obtained information from Stanford - which has 22 white chemistry professors and no Blacks or Hispanics - from the university's Web page and department faculty.

Nelson's article on her findings was published Friday in AWIS Magazine, the publication of the Association of Women in Science.

University administrators said they want to hire more minorities as science and math professors but don't have enough qualified applicants.

"Very small numbers do make it a severe challenge," said Harry Morrison, dean of Purdue University's School of Science. "But I don't think that's a particularly good excuse. I don't have a magic answer."

Of 42 chemistry faculty members at Purdue, one is Black and one is Hispanic.