Women in the Chemical Workforce A Workshop Report to the Chemical Sciences Roundtable (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Workforce for the 21st Century: The Federal Perspective
Workforce for the 21st Century: The Federal Perspective
Pages 38-49
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From page 38... ...
First of all, for the technical fields and, actually, for almost all who are well educated, there is a very low unemployment rate an unemployment rate below that which many economists thought feasible with normal job turnover. In addition, our newspapers frequently publish statements that the unavailability of workers is limiting economic growth in one way or another.
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From page 39... ...
The different curves represent projections for various subgroups of the population. The top two curves, representing the fraction of the population that is non-Hispanic white male and female, are practically superimposed, as you would expect.
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From page 40... ...
Yet these latter fields contribute heavily to economic growth, to improving the environment, and to the maintenance of national security and our citizens' health. Now, the interagency working group I referred to earlier asked the following question: What will happen if the nation does see the demographic changes projected by the Census Bureau and the fraction of young people earning degrees in science, technology, and engineering remains what it is now for each of the ethnic and gender groups that I have discussed here?
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From page 41... ...
On the other hand, the countries from which we are getting immigrants clearly see the value of the people that they are losing to the United States. As a consequence, there are efforts in almost every technologically advanced Asian country to establish first-rate graduate schools and to establish positions within the country that will keep their best and brightest in the country rather than have them emigrate.
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From page 42... ...
But while the general society debates the merits of affirmative action on the basis of apparently conflicting goals for justice toward individuals, we should all be asking the broader questions: What kind of country do we want to have 20 or 30 years from now? Do we want our country to be increasingly dependent on immigration to meet its workforce needs, or do we want our citizens participating more actively in some of the most interesting, productive, and rewarding ventures in the society?
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From page 43... ...
Will it be one in which people from all races participate in science, technology, and engineering, or will we become like some developing countries that are divided markedly into an upper class and an upper middle class that are primarily white and Asian-American, and lower classes that contain the other ethnic groups? I know my choice.
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From page 44... ...
Even though NSF has requested a very large budget increase I don't think it is going to be successful partly because of the caps I guess budget caps imposed by Congress. My second concern, though, is that what we then see may be mirrored in universities.
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From page 45... ...
Arthur Bienenstock: Let me talk first of all about Stanford, where I was chair of the Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Committee in the period after Martin Luther King's death. We really looked at what criteria you should use for admissions, and there is no way that we would use the simplistic numerical criteria that are used by so many state institutions.
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From page 46... ...
I have become quite respectful of the role of community colleges in our educational system and also enamored of programs run by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education that seek to provide curricula and training in technical fields where industry needs workers. They tend to be cooperative programs in which industry works with the community college system to improve curricula.
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From page 47... ...
One of the constant lunchtime discussion topics is, How do I deal with bringing up children and having a career? We have made progress in helping families to deal with some of the issues, like child care centers, but I think we have to think as a society that desires the contributions that come in both ways the parenthood and the professional contributions and look for structural changes.
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From page 48... ...
1 think it Is very important for the companies to realize that they can't just give money to a college of engineering and think that it is going to support our underrepresented undergraduate students anymore. They are going to have to find more creative ways to get that funding to the students through organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers, with scholarships through those programs that can impact our students correctly.
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From page 49... ...
Certainly there was the establishment of day care centers, but you find day care centers are pretty expensive, and what the university did was give the land and the buildings away; nevertheless, staffing is expensive and we have to accept the fact that for a period, family income is going to go into child care centers. I mentioned delays in the tenure clock.
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