Just the Stats: Science Foundation Program Producing Results

More than 200,000 students from underrepresented populations have so far participated in a program started by the National Science Foundation to increase minority representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, according to the foundation.

Although official figures have not yet been released on the percentage increase in participation, the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program graduated 25,309 students in the 2006 academic year of which 12,454 were Hispanic students graduating with a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline.

LSAMP Program Director A. James Hicks says some of the growth is related to an increase in participating campuses. In 1990-91, before NSF stepped in to support the fledgling program, there were fewer than 4,000 STEM graduates in six “alliances” — a conglomerate of academia, government, industry, and other organizations in various regions. Today, there are 38 alliances across the nation.

Hispanic Americans have benefited from the program, according to LSAMP. In 2001-2002, Hispanics represented 49 percent of graduates in the LSAMP program. The biggest gains were in Engineering (3,703 students or 55 percent of total graduates) and Mathematics (3,461 students or 43.2 percent) degrees. They represented 48.8 percent of total graduates in Life Sciences and 39 percent of total graduates in Computer Science. However, they substantially lag (1 percent or lower) in Physics/Astronomy, and Environmental Science.

Immigrants More Likely to Commit Suicide After Divorce, Study Finds

A study of Riverside County residents co-authored by a team of sociologists found that divorced immigrants are more than twice as likely to commit suicide as native-born Americans who are divorced.

The study published in Archives of Suicide Research in March was co-authored by Augustine J. Kposowa, a sociology professor at the University of California at Riverside UCR, Riverside County Sheriff’s Capt. James P. McElvain, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology from UCR, and sociology professor Kevin D. Breault of Middle Tennessee State University.

They also found that the longer immigrants lived in the United States, the less likely they were to kill themselves.

The authors said the findings, based on death records and census reports, indicate that policies aimed at reducing suicide should address depression, anxiety and acculturation-stress problems in immigrant communities, especially among new arrivals.

ESPN Documentary on the HBCU Athletes Who Desegregated College Sports Scores Big

The stories of Black athletes integrating professional sports are legendary. Names like Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson and Lee Elder are known throughout the cosmos as pioneers for justice and equality.

Little, however, was known about the integration of college basketball until ESPN’s groundbreaking documentary, “Black Magic,” chronicled the lives of former players and coaches that worked to desegregate the collegiate athletic conferences.

Televised commercial free, March 16 and 17, “Black Magic,” drew a 1.3 household rating, watched by an average of 1.2 million households, making it the ESPN’s most-watched documentary ever. The film documents the injustices faced by Black college athletes during the civil rights movement as told through the lives of basketball players and coaches from that period.

Perry Wallace, the first Black basketball player to play in the Southeastern Conference, remembered vividly his days in Tennessee as a Vanderbilt Commodore. Some days, says Wallace, were pleasant. Others, he admits, were frightening.

“When you played in the stadiums of the Mississippi and Alabama schools, you encountered a hostile crowd of thousands screaming racial epithets: nigger, coon, all the old-fashioned stuff. I received hate letters. My life was threatened,” says Wallace, who played from 1967-1970.

The Southeastern Conference was established in 1932, when the 13 members of the Southern Conference left to form their own conference. Ten teams make up the SEC including: the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and University of Tennessee.

At Diversifying Colleges Tenure Still a Hurdle for Women, Minorities

At Diversifying Colleges Tenure Still a Hurdle for Women, Minorities: ... Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), said historically Black colleges and universities have a successful model to achieve a diverse professoriate.

Close to 48 percent of HBCU faculty come from diverse racial backgrounds, said Baskerville, adding that approximately 52 percent of the faculty at HBCUs are Black, 33 percent are White, 7 percent are Asian American and 3 percent are Hispanic.

Baskerville recommended putting pressure on state and federal legislatures to shift funding away from colleges and universities that are not giving priority to diversifying their faculties and allocating these funds to institutions, such as HBCUs, that have diverse faculties.

However, although HBCUs by their very nature have diverse student bodies and faculties, the pipeline to the professorship for women and minorities is not working, said Dr. Catherine Hill, director of research for the American Association of University Women.

Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling - New York Times

Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling - New York Times: LODI, Calif. — Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.

Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes.

“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes — they don’t think it is a good thing for girls,” said Miss Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade level in this agricultural center some 70 miles east of San Francisco. “You have to be respectable.”

Across the United States, Muslims who find that a public school education clashes with their religious or cultural traditions have turned to home schooling. That choice is intended partly as a way to build a solid Muslim identity away from the prejudices that their children, boys and girls alike, can face in schoolyards. But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi’s, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life.

Harlem to Antarctica for Science, and Pupils - New York Times

Harlem to Antarctica for Science, and Pupils - New York Times: ... Dr. Pekar had found just the person for his Antarctica team: a talented, intrepid African-American teacher to be a role model for minority science students.

“I’m tired of having a bunch of white people running around doing science,” said Dr. Pekar, who is white. “When it comes to Antarctica, it isn’t just the landscape that’s white.”

Dr. Pekar wants to get more American students, and particularly more minority students, excited about science. Many studies show teenagers across the United States lagging in math and science scores behind their peers in other industrialized countries.

“These kids don’t have the role models, or the environment, that shows them what the possibilities are,” he said. “I want Shakira Brown’s students to be able to live this experience through her. I want them to be thinking like scientists — like lovers of life.”

The trip is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, which sends about 300 scientists to Antarctica each year. Tom Wagner, director of earth sciences for the program, estimates that perhaps three or four African-Americans have joined that research effort.

Relatively few African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians work in the earth sciences, Dr. Wagner said, adding that the foundation was working to bring greater diversity to the field.

Many Potential Leaders of Tomorrow Reject the Role - washingtonpost.com

Many Potential Leaders of Tomorrow Reject the Role - washingtonpost.com: A new nationwide survey of girls and boys found that a majority of children and youths in the United States have little or no interest with achieving leadership roles when they become adults, ranking 'being a leader' behind other goals such as 'fitting in,' 'making a lot of money' and 'helping animals or the environment.'

The study commissioned by the Girl Scouts of the USA and released today determined that three-quarters of African American girls and boys and Hispanic girls surveyed already identify themselves as leaders, a much larger group than white youths, about half of whom think of themselves this way.

The youths defined leaders as people who prize collaboration, stand up for their beliefs and values, and try to improve society. Girls in particular endorsed these approaches, although a majority of boys did, as well. Yet when asked in focus groups about leadership styles among adults, what they described was traditional top-down management.

Judy Schoenberg, research director for the Girl Scouts, said the youths in the survey "see a disconnect between what they aspire to and what is."

11 Black Head Coaches are in The 2008 NCAA National Tournament

11 Black Head Coaches are in The 2008 NCAA National Tournament: This year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship field of 65 has 11 teams lead by Black head coaches. Approximately 63 percent of all male Division I basketball players are Black, while Blacks represent 17 percent of the head coaches in this year’s field of 65.

The 11 Black head coaches who made it into the 2008 NCAA Basketball National Championship are:

Dennis Felton – University of Georgia

Ernie Kent – University of Oregon

Frank Haith – University of Miami

James Green – Mississippi Valley State University

Jeff Capel – University of Oklahoma

John Thompson III – Georgetown University

Milan Brown – Mount Saint Mary’s University

Oliver Purnell – Clemson University

Randy Monroe – University of Maryland Baltimore County

Ron Mitchell – Coppin State University

Trent Johnson – Stanford University

Blacks Were Improperly Kept Off La. Jury, High Court Rules - washingtonpost.com

Blacks Were Improperly Kept Off La. Jury, High Court Rules - washingtonpost.com: The Supreme Court yesterday reversed the conviction of a Louisiana death row inmate, ruling that a prosecutor improperly excluded African Americans from the jury in what he had called his 'O.J. Simpson case.'

The court's 7 to 2 decision means a new trial for Allen Snyder, who was sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of killing his estranged wife's boyfriend and seriously wounding her.

Former Jefferson Parish prosecutor James Williams, who was known for persuading juries to sentence murderers to death, compared Snyder's case to Simpson's both in and outside court and told jurors during the sentencing phase of Snyder's trial that Simpson "got away with it.

The court's opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not mention the Simpson remarks but focused narrowly on whether Williams had improperly excluded blacks from the jury.

Snyder's lawyer, Stephen B. Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said the decision is an important reinforcement of the court's position that judges have an obligation to scrutinize why lawyers reject potential jurors.

Is separate ... more equal? Tackle boys' learning gap with academic focus

PERSPECTIVE

... A complex array of gender equity concerns has led some educators to consider single-sex public education as one way to address the disparate experiences and outcomes of girls and boys. Urban educators in particular began exploring single-sex education for boys left behind.

The majority of these boys are African-American and Hispanic, a compelling rationale for innovation given the preponderance of literature that these boys are in academic and socio-economic crisis.

The 2006 Delaware State Testing Program 10th-grade reading proficiency scores are 47 percent for black boys, 52 percent for Hispanic boys, and 85 percent for white boys -- a gap of almost 40 percent.

Black girls score at 69 percent, Hispanic girls at 52 percent, and white girls at 91 percent.

The 10th-grade writing proficiency scores put black boys at 52 percent, Hispanic boys at 60 percent, and white boys at 81 percent.

Black girls score at 73 percent, Hispanic girls at 61 percent, and white girls at 91 percent proficiency in writing.

The 10th-grade math proficiency scores put black boys at 28 percent, Hispanic boys at 48 percent, and white boys at 80 percent -- a gap of more than 50 percent.

Black girls score at 50 percent, Hispanic girls at 42 percent, and white girls at 78 percent in math.

Several studies found that students in single-sex schools devoted more time to homework, had higher aspirations for academic and educational achievement, and wanted to be remembered for their scholastic abilities rather than leadership in activities or popularity.

NPR: Racism and Family Secrets in 'Mudbound'

NPR: Racism and Family Secrets in 'Mudbound': Morning Edition, March 14, 2008 Hillary Jordan's first novel, Mudbound, is a story of racism and well-kept secrets. Set on a desolate farm in the Mississippi Delta at the end of World War II, the novel explores the complex relations between two families: the owners of the land, and the sharecroppers who live and work on it.

The novel earned Jordan the Bellwether Prize for fiction, an award founded by author Barbara Kingsolver to promote literature of social responsibility. The cash prize and publishing contract is awarded bi-annually to an unpublished author.

Kingsolver says Mudbound is a beautifully written novel that examines the roots of racism through the distinct voices of its characters.

NPR: Black Players' Struggles Find Voice in 'Black Magic'

NPR: Black Players' Struggles Find Voice in 'Black Magic': All Things Considered, March 15, 2008 In March 1944, basketball players from the North Carolina College for Negroes played a secret game against military medical students from Duke University.

Rabid segregation kept the teams from playing together in public, and by the end of the clandestine matchup, the North Carolina players had soundly beaten Duke, 88-44.

The secret game was just one of the historic incidents featured in a new ESPN documentary about early African-American basketball pioneers and the historically black colleges and universities that nurtured them. Black Magic tells the stories of many of the players who gradually broke through the barriers of segregation and racism and set the standard for the basketball stars of today.

John McLendon coached the North Carolina team in 1944. His widow, Joanna, remembers that the experience was unique for students throughout segregated America.

'Some of his players had never had any contact with whites before. Some of them had never touched a white person to shake hands,' she recalls.

Black Magic co-producer Earl Monroe, who was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history, says the historic 1944 game wasn't an isolated incident.

Virginia Hispanic Population Triples in 16 Years

Virginia’s Hispanic population tripled from 1990 to 2006, to more than 460,000 or 6 percent of the population, according to a study released Feb. 25 by the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

The study of Virginia’s Hispanics analyzes United States Census Bureau data to describe growth trends, characteristics and life in Virginia for resident Hispanics.

Qian Cai, director of the Cooper Center’s Demographics and Workforce section and author of the study, said the study shows that “Virginia’s Hispanic population is complex, varied and deeply engaged in significant sectors of the Virginia economy, and Hispanic presence in the overall population is likely to increase in future years. A thorough understanding of the population’s composition and characteristics provides a foundation for sound policy deliberations.”

He said the study found that 60 percent of Hispanics in Virginia are U.S. citizens, the majority U.S.-born, and 13 percent naturalized, and that “adult Hispanic citizens surpass Virginians overall in both educational attainment and household income.”

Minorities cite health care disparities

WASHINGTON — Minorities are more likely than white patients to rate their health care as fair or poor, a view that is particularly true among Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans and blacks born in Africa.

Researchers have long stressed that improving patients' perception of their care is important to improving outcomes. That's because negative experiences can lead to less time spent with a physician and poor communications between doctor and patient.

To get a more detailed view of the differing perceptions that patients have, researchers at Harvard University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation surveyed 4,334 adults last year. The researchers asked patients such questions as how quickly they were able to get an appointment the last time they were sick and whether their doctor explained things in a way the patient could understand. The researchers found that whites routinely rated their experience higher than did the minority patients, who still had largely favorable views of their care.

For example, 91% of whites rated their care as excellent or good. That percentage fell for most ethnic groups, with the lowest ratings recorded among Chinese-Americans, 74%; African-Americans born in Africa, 73%; and Vietnamese-Americans, 72%.

When it came to getting an appointment, about 63% of whites were able to get an appointment on the same day or the next day after they became sick or injured. That percentage dropped to 42% for Cuban-Americans and 39% for African-Americans born in the Caribbean.

Population Shift Sends Universities Scrambling - washingtonpost.com

Population Shift Sends Universities Scrambling - washingtonpost.com: Colleges and universities are anxiously taking steps to address a projected drop in the number of high school graduates in much of the nation starting next year and a dramatic change in the racial and ethnic makeup of the student population, a phenomenon expected to transform the country's higher education landscape, educators and analysts said.

After years of being overwhelmed with applicants, higher education institutions will over the next decade recruit from a pool of public high school graduates that will experience:

- A projected national decline of roughly 10 percent or more in non-Hispanic white students, the population that traditionally is most likely to attend four-year colleges.

- A double-digit rise in the proportion of minority students -- especially Hispanics -- who traditionally are less likely to attend college and to obtain loans to fund education.

Despite those obstacles, minority enrollment at undergraduate schools is expected to rise steadily, from 30 percent in 2004 to about 37 percent in 2015, some analysts project.

For Hispanic Leaders, College Affordability Is Top Concern

For Hispanic Leaders, College Affordability Is Top Concern: A panel of Hispanic college and university presidents said affordability is greatly affecting Hispanic students’ access to college and offered suggestions for boosting public investment in higher education at a plenary session at the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education’s annual meting.

Time and again the speakers, Dr. Max Castillo, president of the University of Houston’s downtown campus, Dr. Ricardo Fern�ndez, president of Lehman College at the City University of New York and Dr. Marcelina V�lez-Santiago, president of the Pontificia Universidad Cat�lica de Puerto Rico, came back to the issue of affordability.

Castillo described one of the “seismic transformations” in higher education affecting access as the disinvestment of the government in higher education. No matter the state, “it’s not unusual to go into a legislative session and continuously defend your school,” he said in his presentation to the large crowd of Hispanic graduate students, faculty and administrators.

Just the Stats: Science Foundation Program Producing Results

Just the Stats: Science Foundation Program Producing Results: More than 200,000 students from underrepresented populations have so far participated in a program started by the National Science Foundation to increase minority representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, according to the foundation.

Although official figures have not yet been released on the percentage increase in participation, the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program graduated 25,309 students in the 2006 academic year of which 12,454 were Hispanic students graduating with a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline.

LSAMP Program Director A. James Hicks says some of the growth is related to an increase in participating campuses. In 1990-91, before NSF stepped in to support the fledgling program, there were fewer than 4,000 STEM graduates in six “alliances” — a conglomerate of academia, government, industry, and other organizations in various regions. Today, there are 38 alliances across the nation.

AP Course Access and Scores Improve for Hispanics in Some States

Although Hispanic students have continued to close the “equity and excellence gap” in 15 states in the Advanced Placement courses, gaps persist in California and Texas, two of the biggest states with a high percentage of Hispanics in their population, the College Board reveals in its annual AP Report to the Nation.

While more minority students are entering AP classrooms, significant gaps remain, the College Board reports. In California, for instance, where Hispanics make up 37 percent of the student population, 30.7 percent of the Hispanic students scored three or higher in the tests. In Texas, the margin was lower with 32.6 percent of Hispanic students scoring three or higher. In that state, Hispanics are 36.5 percent of the student population in public schools.

“More students from varied backgrounds are accomplishing their AP goals, but we can’t afford to believe equity has been achieved until demographics of successful AP participation and performance are identical to the demographics of the overall student population,” says College Board President Gaston Caperton.

There was little discrepancy between AP exam enrollment rates and overall enrollment rates for Hispanic and White students, while Asian American students represented a disproportionately higher number of AP exam enrollees.

America Fails To Meet Justice Goals 40 Years After Kerner

America Fails To Meet Justice Goals 40 Years After Kerner: Over the last 40 years, America has failed to make significant progress on poverty, inequality, racial injustice and crime, according to a report that updates the 1968 report of the Kerner Commission, the bipartisan National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission, convened to respond to a wave of riots that engulfed communities of color from 1963 to 1967, the Eisenhower Foundation published a report to update the commission’s 40-year-old findings. The foundation is a nonprofit group that continues the work of the National Advisory Commission.

The report revealed that 37 million Americans live in poverty and another 46 million Americans are without health insurance. While poverty among African-Americans has declined, poor African-Americans are three times as likely and poor Hispanics twice as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to live in deep poverty, half below the poverty line. Nearly 44 percent of Black female-headed households with children under 18 were impoverished in 2006.

Georgia's first black police officers may take pension battle to court - CNN.com

Georgia's first black police officers may take pension battle to court - CNN.com: ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A 'whites only' sign was still hanging on the precinct house water fountain in 1964 when James Booker joined the suburban College Park police force.

He soon learned it wasn't the only thing off limits to Georgia's new black recruits.

Until 1976, black officers were blocked from joining a state-supported supplemental police retirement fund.

Today, white officers who entered the fund before that year are taking home hundreds of dollars more every month in retirement benefits than their black counterparts.

The now-retired black officers have been lobbying hard to change that, but eight years after they began an effort to amend the state constitution and give them credit for those lost years is stalled in the Legislature.

The Georgia Constitution prohibits the state from extending new benefits to public employees after they have retired.

Exhibit Preserves Pursuit Of Liberty - washingtonpost.com

Exhibit Preserves Pursuit Of Liberty - washingtonpost.com: An exhibit of hundreds of rare artifacts unearthed in Annapolis over the past 27 years shows that the quest for freedom by African Americans is as much a part of the city's history as the fight for liberty by the wealthy property owners who rebelled against the British.

A central theme of the exhibit, which opens Tuesday, is 'the quest of African Americans to create and preserve their integrity and to establish their freedom in a slave society,' said Mark Leone, a University of Maryland anthropology professor who directs the Archaeology in Annapolis project, a partnership that, through the years, has involved the university, the city's Banneker-Douglass Museum, the City of Annapolis and the Historic Annapolis Foundation.

The items, which the project has discovered in about 40 digs since 1981 with more than 350 students, professors and others at the university, will be on public display together for the first time in 'Seeking Liberty: Annapolis, an Imagined Community' at the museum. The exhibit will be the largest archaeological display ever at the museum, the state's official repository for African American material culture.

Free Lunch Isn’t Cool, So Some Students Go Hungry - New York Times

Free Lunch Isn’t Cool, So Some Students Go Hungry - New York Times: ... San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner.

Only 37 percent of eligible high school students citywide take advantage of the subsidized meal program. But the stigma of accepting a government lunch, while others are paying for food from a different menu, is not unique to San Francisco. It is a problem many school districts across the country have been quietly confronting with mixed results, education and school nutrition officials said.