On Campus
Ga. Tech's FOCUS on Black Achievement
By Lango Deen
Apr 5, 2003, 17:04
Deidre E. Paris Ph.D
Growing the supply of Black engineers with master's or doctorate degrees is the mission of the Georgia Institute of Technology's annual FOCUS program. Traditionally held during Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday week, FOCUS' three-day series of lectures, tours, panel discussions with academic and professional leaders, and seminars on financial assistance and the admissions process is designed to encourage Black students to pursue graduate degrees at Georgia Tech and elsewhere.
This year, more than 300 Black juniors and seniors from 100 colleges and universities across America attended the 12th annual FOCUS graduate recruiting event at Tech, in Atlanta's historic university district. FOCUS began in 1992, as a modest program to recruit Black graduates to Georgia Tech. Since then, the program has grown into one of the most comprehensive recruiting efforts nationally for minority graduate students and faculty by a non-historically Black university.
Ranked the top graduate program by the 10,000-member National Society of Black Engineers in 2001, Tech also was named the number one producer of Black engineers in the country according to a Black Issues in Higher Education report the same year. Tech awarded more bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees to Black engineering students during the 1999-2000 academic year than any other university or college in the nation. Tech's 36 engineering master's degrees awarded to Blacks accounted for 6.3 percent of the school's total number for 1999-2000, and its 11 engineering Ph.D.s awarded to Blacks was 6.9 percent of the total.
Robert Haley, director of special projects in the College of Engineering and coordinator of FOCUS, said Georgia Tech -- which marked its 40th anniversary of voluntary integration in 2001-- established a goal more than a decade ago to increase diversity in its student body and create a campus environment of inclusion, respect, and community.
"Georgia Tech has a series of programs that approach minority recruitment from elementary to graduate school," says Haley.
Although Blacks constitute 9 percent of college freshmen according to current statistics, they receive only 2 percent of the doctorates awarded in science and engineering. Experts have found that although industry and academic demand for Ph.D.s in engineering is strong, fewer and fewer engineering students in the U.S. have been willing to forego the lucrative salaries a bachelor's degree can bring in favor of graduate student poverty. The National Science Foundation reported a total of 107,200 Ph.D. engineers in 1999, of whom 72,090 were White, 31,030 Asian or Pacific Islander, 1,590 African American, 2,270 Hispanic, and 210 American Indian/Alaska Native. Underrepresented minorities comprised only 3.6 per cent of the total doctorates awarded.
Georgia Tech is one of the eight original universities -- including Howard University; the University of Alabama, Birmingham; the University of Florida; the University of Michigan; the University of Missouri-Columbia; the University of Puerto Rico; and Rice University -- that received the National Science Foundation Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate awards in 1998, to increase significantly the number of African-American, Hispanic and Native American students receiving science, mathematics, and engineering degrees.
FOCUS Students Speak
A cross section of FOCUS participants -- from the first group in 1992 to this year's class -- shared their stories with USBE Online about life during their graduate study at Georgia Tech and beyond.
Johney Green had always wanted to go to Georgia Tech. He applied, got accepted, then had to turn down the offer because of lack of financial support. Somehow, Green says, Tech kept track of him, and he was invited to take part in FOCUS and learn about opportunities for qualified undergrad students to obtain graduate degrees in engineering. Green didn't know he would make history as one of the 42 students in the first FOCUS program.
"It was really a great experience," Green says. "I got to learn about how the grad school process works and was able to connect with new people."
Among those new people were Kevin Harris, a BPAmoco executive who is a former president of NSBE; Terence Mosley of Delphi Automotive; Eric Coleman of DowChemical; and Dennis McAdory of Michelin, Greenville.
"We were known as the ME [mechanical engineering] posse all over the Tech campus," Green reminisces.
Oakridge National Laboratory held a spot for him, Green says, and he took his qualifying exams in June 1995. Today, Dr. Green is in automotive research, supporting the Department of Energy's FreedomCAR & Vehicle Technology program.
Reginald Parker was a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he came across a publication from FOCUS. He had plans to develop expertise in polymer science and mathematical simulation and become a professor of engineering.
"[Chemical engineering] seemed to be the most strategic fit," Parker says. In January 1992, he used his semester break to visit schools of interest; the chemical engineering department at Tech was one of them.
"The visit helped me to seal the deal," he says.
Parker is now a visiting professor of engineering at Florida A&M University. He serves as chairman of the Biological and Agricultural Systems Engineering program and director of the Laboratory of Polymer and Composite Manufacturing. He has owned a boutique consulting firm since 1996, and he adjuncts in Business at Flagler College. He has an M.B.A. from Florida State University.
Deidre E. Paris graduated from Southern University in 1992, with a plan to major in electrical engineering. With a choice of attending five graduate schools -- the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, North Carolina A&T State University, and Georgia Tech -- Paris felt unsure about going to Tech because of the keen competition. But positive testimonials from other Southern alumni who had attended graduate school at Tech helped her make up her mind.
"One of the things that really stood out about Tech," Paris says, "was the cohesiveness among African-American students through the Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA).... I was extremely successful in the electrical engineering program, and I can attribute much of this success [to] interactions and contacts [at] FOCUS gatherings."
Paris graduated from Georgia Tech with an M.Sc. in computer engineering and power system planning in 1994, when many power companies were being deregulated.
"I wanted to become involved in [the] paradigm shift," she says.
She went on to get a master's in public policy and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.
The first Black to receive a doctoral degree in construction engineering management at Georgia Tech, Dr. Paris now is a professor at Clark Atlanta University, where she teaches courses in electrical and environmental engineering.
Janise McNair, assistant electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, attended FOCUS in 1994. Since then, it has become her homecoming weekend. McNair says she chose Tech because of the commitment to making graduate school a successful experience for minority engineers.
"This was not just a program to increase admission numbers and then abandon you once you arrived, this was a program that had a vested interest in my success," she says.
Kendra Taylor, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in industrial and systems engineering at Tech, has participated in FOCUS every year since she enrolled in 1999. Taylor was the chief liaison between FOCUS and BGSA this past year. Her advise to engineering undergrads preparing for graduate study is simple: "Get a good vibe from people in the department. Ask yourself, 'Does it look like they want me to come here?'
"Graduate school is a whole different ball game than undergrad," says Pamela Reid, who is finishing a master's degree in chemical engineering at Tech. "You need to be ready to hit the ground running."
Reid attended FOCUS '99. She says it was a turning point for her. Reid chose Tech because of its variety of research areas and strong support system.
Jacquese White attended FOCUS this January. She has one word to sum up the experience: "Phenomenal!
"To see young, successful Black men and women with goals, contrary to media portrayals, really put my 'focus' into overdrive, because those people are where I want to be," White says.
Now a junior at Purdue University pursuing a dual degree in industrial engineering and industrial distribution, White says FOCUS did exactly what it set out to do: encourage pursuit of education at the graduate level. She has been spreading the word as an ambassador for graduate education since then.
"The most [important] message I received that weekend was, 'If Georgia Tech is not the right graduate institution for you...at least find one that is.' "
