The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s engineering and applied sciences program have a total of three black employees.
Three, out of a total of 101. That is an amazingly low 2.97%.
Those numbers, by the way, come from UWM’s own affirmative action report.
As UWM seeks to flee the confines of the city for the comforts of spacious new digs on the County Grounds in western Wauwatosa, it is worth asking whether moving away from minority populations will help its minority recruiting efforts, or whether perhaps those efforts would be enhanced more if UWM were to locate its school downtown or elsewhere in the city.
There are no black males — a big 0 — on staff inUWM’s engineering and applied science programs, according to the report, which is dated Oct. 31. There are no black professors or associate professors there, either.
Reflects, also, the school’s dismal African-American enrollment. UWM’s leadership is into monument building as it morphs towards a research identity that will please business and politicians, and attract grants and headlines, but which discounts basic teaching and other undergrad services.
Your words about the makeup of UWM’s engineering faculty greatly understates this nationwide problem. The lack of minorities in the engineering professions (including serving as educators) is felt across the country. The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering describes this nationwide challenge in its excellent report “Confronting the New American Dilemma”.
http://www.nacme.org/pdf/NACME_AnnualReport2008.pdf
The problem starts early, with just 4% of underrepresented minority students graduating from high school with the math and science skills needed to study engineering, and continues through all levels of college.
By the time we get to the PhD graduates, we find that in 2005, NATIONWIDE, there were just 100 U.S. engineering doctoral degrees awarded to African Americans, only 98 to Latinos, and only nine to
American Indians.
Imagine the competition from hundreds of university engineering programs to hire those very few minority graduates! What a challenge for any university to hire an African-American engineering PhD.
I suppose moving away from the city will help these numbers improve… hmmmm
James Rowen criticizes African-American enrollment at UWM and likely hopes you’ll take his word for it and not look up facts at http://www.uwsa.edu/opar/ssb/
Though the second largest university in the state is woefully behind the largest (Madison) in scholarship dollars available, Milwaukee easily enrolls the most African-Americans (and, for that matter, under-represented minorities in total) in the UW System.
(Scholarship dollars are especially important to many African-American families trying to finance a higher education. In Wisconsin, African-American families have a median household income of about $26,000, compared to the median income of about $51,000 for white families. The U.S. Census Bureau makes these numbers available.)
UWM comes out ahead of Madison in under-represented minorities counting by either percentage of enrollment or total numbers. The larger number of under-represented minorities is especially significant when considering Milwaukee has 12,405 fewer total students (29,215 v. 41,620).
UWM does this even though many wealthier, high-profile universities from inside and outside Wisconsin recruit in Milwaukee and often cherry pick away the highest-scoring ACT and SAT students from the Milwaukee Public Schools.
James’s criticism of basic teaching and other undergraduate services is equally baseless. He is again hoping you don’t look up facts about progress undergraduates are making in the past few years thanks to UWM’s Access to Success program. Check it out at http://www4.uwm.edu/access_success/ and you’ll see why you need to question every word James writes.
Truth — I will stick with Jim’s characterization of UWM’s African-American enrollment. I did check out the stats you referred to — UW-Madison’s African-American enrollment is an appalling 2.8%; the African-American enrollment at UWM, located in a minority-majority community, is 6.6%. Also appalling. In addition, the numbers reflect headcounts, not FTEs. I suspect if we shook everything down to FTEs, both schools’ African-American enrollments would drop noticeably.
UWM’s African-American enrollment figures are dismal, indeed. Madison being even worse doesn’t change that.
Gretchen, you’ve found one number (6.6%) but you haven’t gone far enough! I’ll agree that 6.6% sounds low, but how does it compare? (One of the biggest shortcomings of bloggers is they find one disagreeable number and stop right there.)
Here’s a few factors you’ll need to include in your research as you search for comparable universities and their African-American enrollment totals, and they all have to do with the pipeline supplying future students:
+You’ll need to find similar statewide African-American high school graduation rates (Wisconsin is at 44% from its public high schools, according to the U.S. IES). Keep in mind about 95% of UWM students are from Wisconsin.
+You’ll also need to find similar local African-American high school graduation rates (lots of controversy over those numbers from MPS; good luck sorting out which numbers to use from them). About one-third of UWM students come from Milwaukee County, but you’ll have to do some sorting of UWM info to find out how many of those are from MPS, how many are from suburban schools and balancing out those local totals.
+You’ll have to find some way to take into the account the huge negative disparity in math and reading scores among African-American MPS high school graduates. You can find useful info here: http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume%2020/Vol20No6/Vo20No6p1.html
+There is a related challenge in factoring into your calculations the thousands of students–hundreds of whom are African-American–for whom UWM annually provides remedial education in math and English. These young people just haven’t acquired the skills to qualify for 100-level university math and English classes, and UWM does a lot of work to get them up to minimal standards. I’m sure that data is somewhere on UWM’s Access to Success pages.
If you look into this further, I’m sure you’ll also see many other factors that are worth taking into consideration. At the end of this, we will not only learn whether 6.6% is indeed appalling, but you’ll likely have done enough work to be well on your way to some sort of graduate degree.
C’mon, Truth. The number is basically what you cited to show that UWM is doing a good job. I went to the site at your direction and looked at the numbers you cited. Now you say the number, because it doesn’t support your argument, doesn’t tell the story and it’s my “shortcoming” for citing your own stats.
If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, you must be a frickin’ genius.
Sorry Gretchen. Thought you might have been interested in a conversation that builds on cumulative perspectives. My mistake. Please return to your knee-jerking hip-shooting.
Truth — And I’m sorry you’re not staying around to defend your arguments. Although a 6.6% black enrollment level is fairly indefensible in and of itself.
And how many qualified Black American males applied for jobs at the school and how many Black American PhD’s applied? And if they applied and weren’t offered employment why didn’t they get the job? Maybe the other candidate was a better choice? Or wait, I forgot, hire the minority even if the other candidate is better qualified all for the sake of diversity. In other words, commit blatant reverse discrimination. This story stinks, it throws out a bunch of stats without looking into why the stats are what they are. What are the reasons behind these statistics? I can’t stand articles such as this one, everyone is so quick to point the finger at UWM is if they’re at fault. Unless a large number of qualified blacks were turned away from the school there’s no story here and the article doesn’t mention ANYTHING about that topic! Why does every institution in America have to reach out to minorities when they should be reaching out themselves just as whites do, it’s not that hard folks, give it a try for once. (OMG Vince, you are a total racist…blah, blah, blah…)