Tapping the Federal Pipeline: In late November, one of the most memorable calls Michael Hester, interim CEO of the United Negro College Fund Special Projects Corp., or UNCFSP, answered came from a large, top-tier defense contractor looking to partner with his constituents, HBCUs, and other minority-serving institutions, on a federal contract worth $10 billion. But, on most days, Hester, a former NASA contractor, is concerned with eliminating the glaring racial and economic disparities that exist in contract awards and federal research and development, or R&D, expenditures for higher education. Only about 1.4 percent of the more than $32 billion in federal funds expended for R&D in higher education went to Black colleges, says Hester, citing a 2008-2009 National Science Foundation report.
