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11 General Discussion
Pages 136-148

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From page 136...
... I get concerned, because my sister was a Phi Beta Kappa, a chemistry major, and she works for Kimberly-Clark, but she will not get a Ph.D. I am concerned that we are talking about the chemical workforce as if the Ph.D.s were the only participants there.
From page 137...
... Israel, Southwest Texas State University: If we are talking about the chemical workforce, there is a part of the chemical workforce that we have not addressed except tangentially, and that is the K-12 teachers. In fact, the other part that we have not really addressed is what happens to our undergraduate students that do not go on for a Ph.D.
From page 138...
... So we can talk diversity, but it is going to be a long time before you get some of the smaller companies to pick up on this diversity. Basically, with all these companies it is the bottom line, and the bottom line means making money.
From page 139...
... But I am always mindful to have any undergraduates help me with these shows, and they come away really jazzed; this is so much fun, I wish we did some of this stuff in our regular chemistry classes, and just talking about the applications of chemistry. So maybe we just need to involve our undergraduates a little bit more, whether they are a chemistry major or not, in some of these outside activities that show what chemistry is all about and how exciting it can be.
From page 140...
... They could use the time to help themselves succeed as well as benefit our profession, and they would be role models for many others. Rigoberto Hernandez, Georgia Institute of Technology: What would that person do at the NRC?
From page 141...
... The thing that was also interesting was that several of them started working back-to-back shifts, or they would work 16 hours a day, and then go to school at night. Continuing education made them another source of employees for the chemical workforce, basically because they started learning chemistry by doing chemistry.
From page 142...
... So there is a positive outcome for getting students into research labs, to meet all of those criteria and opportunities that we talked about here mentoring, nurturing, advancing, opening pathways, strengthening intellectual capacity, strengthening skills, at the earliest possible stages. Finally, in terms of affirmative action and diversity, the take that I find most useful is that affirmative action is a strategy and diversity is an outcome.
From page 143...
... We are very unlike Europe in that way, where industrial chemistry is highly respected. It would be wonderful if you could have plant managers in Memphis or Knoxville who were successful African American chemists, who now had become respected managers and citizen leaders.
From page 144...
... So maybe your chances are better than one in 20 if you come from one of those top-ten schools. But we do not have that many Latino Americans or African Americans or Chicano Americans or Native Americans going to those top-ten programs, and for whatever reason only a few of those that do attend those top-ten programs are becoming academic success stories.
From page 145...
... Francisco: I wanted to reemphasize a point, that Michael Doyle brought out and a point echoed by Robert Lichter. It is the importance of undergraduate research.
From page 146...
... But he said, "We are going to give you a Robert Welch Foundation undergraduate fellowship." I needed money. He said, "Do not consider it as work.
From page 147...
... I have seen African American students walking the halls with chemistry majors who were almost flunking out, and I have gotten them through their undergraduate career just by putting them in my lab. Sometimes I paid them.
From page 148...
... Foster, and anybody at the City University of New York, anyone who teaches in a place where there are large numbers of underrepresented minority students. People know where their students are.


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