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Nearly 30 years of leadership and support
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NACME's history is a long one, but one consistently marked with
an unwavering commitment towards building a more diverse engineering
workforce.
Please select one of the following:
»» NACME's History
»» Timeline (1973-2004)
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History
In 1971, among the total of 43,000 Bachelor's degree recipients
in engineering, there were approximately 500 African Americans,
Latinos and American Indians, scarcely one percent of the graduates
from groups making up 18 percent of the college-age population.
Only 0.5 percent of the engineering workforce was at that time
comprised of minorities, while more than half of the chief executive
officers and almost two-thirds of all managers in the Fortune
500 Industrials were engineers. With the nation's consciousness
raised by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the engineering
community reflected on the implications of those numbers.
Clearly, if minorities were going to achieve upward mobility in the
corporate sector, we would have to gain greater access to careers
in engineering. At the same time, the vast complex of federal
scientific laboratories, federal mission agencies and academia also
employed large numbers of engineers and their ranks were expanding.
The scientific enterprise was the fastest growing sector of the
economy and minorities were being shut out.
With the urging of minority leaders, business executives and the
academic community, leading corporations decided to pool their
resources to achieve parity in the representation of minorities
in engineering. By 1974, four loosely coupled organizations had
been created to build the knowledge base and expertise to lead a
long-term national effort:
- NACME, the National Advisory Council for Minorities in
Engineering, comprised of top-level industry executives who
agreed to provide leadership and funding for the new initiative;
- CME, the Committee on Minorities in Engineering of the
National Academy of Engineering, to conduct research on the issues
impacting minority participation;
- ME3, the Minority Engineering Education Effort, to
identify and recruit potential engineering students; and
- NFMES, the National Fund for Minority Engineering Students,
to provide much needed financial aid.
In 1980, the loose coupling became a formal merger of NFMES and
ME3 with legal incorporation under NACME. To signify
the new organization's expanded role, Advisory was changed
to Action in its acronym. The original Advisory Council
became NACME's board and the new corporation assumed many
functions of the CME. The mandate of NACME, now the National
Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, was to conduct
ongoing research, to identify the impediments limiting access to
careers in engineering and to implement programs to achieve a
technical workforce truly reflective of the American population.
University Programs
In the 1970s, NACME, through NFMES, introduced the Incentive
Grants Program (IGP) and scholarships became our central strategic
thrust. IGP provided large grants to universities as an incentive
for them to invest in outreach, recruitment and supplementary
scholarships, thus leveraging the NACME funds. This strategy was
enormously effective as the number of minority freshman enrolled
in engineering climbed from 2,249 in 1973 to 11,116 in 1981.
However, this rapid growth came to an abrupt halt, leveling off
and then declining through the 1980s, bouncing back to 11,754 by
the end of the decade.
Searching for the underlying causes of this stagnation, NACME's
research department uncovered two phenomena: (1) the pool of
minority students graduating from high school with the credentials
to enter engineering school had not changed during the late 1970s,
thus 1980-1981 marked a saturation point in the recruitment effort
and (2) along with the growth in enrollment came a significant
rise in attrition of minority students.
This research led to a major shift in NACME's program strategy.
At the university level, we redirected a substantial fraction of
our resources toward establishing minority engineering programs
(MEPs). Recognizing both the intensity of engineering education
and the hostile environment faced by minority students, who were
very much isolated ethnically in engineering school, these
programs were aimed at enhancing the academic and survival skills
of minority students and enabling them to overcome the
institutional obstacles they faced.
Using seed funding and technical assistance, NACME pioneered the
development of 11 minority engineering programs in 1980-81. Based
on our research, NACME developed and refined the MEP model and
collaborating with the National Association of Minority Engineering
Program Administrators (NAMEPA), published a best practices handbook
on how to start and operate effective MEP programs. NACME's
communications department also published books on effective
strategies for academic success and for obtaining financial aid,
and provided career guidance to thousands of students in engineering
programs.
By 1980, the IGP program was a major factor in the effort to bring
minorities into engineering. Spending nearly $3 million each year,
it supported about 12 percent of all minority students enrolled.
However, during the 1980s, the strategies underlying the program
shifted significantly in response to changing needs and conditions.
Rather than stimulate outreach and recruitment, NACME leveraged the
grants to promote the development of MEPs and build improvement in
retention. The need to reduce attrition, paired with the
dramatically rising cost of higher education, which weakened the
impact of scholarship dollars for individual students, necessitated
a restructuring of the IGP.
We gradually reduced the number of universities receiving grants
from 140 to 50, focusing on those schools that had the best retention
records. We increased the minimum scholarship amount for individual
students, while reducing the number of students served. This strategy
increased the retention of NACME scholars to about twice the national
average for minority students in engineering.
From 1978 to 1999, NACME's Incentive Grants Program yielded more than
6,000 minority graduates in engineering. About 85 percent of those
students entered the corporate engineering workforce, many with the
help of NACME's Summer Engineering Employment Project, which provides
linkages between donor companies and NACME scholars.
Precollege Programs
NACME's research in 1980-81 made it clear that parity could not be
achieved without significantly enlarging the pool of high school
graduates prepared for the engineering curriculum. As a result, we
shifted some attention to the development of precollege programs.
Bounded by the limited resources available, our strategy was to
establish community-based programs that would function autonomously,
outside of the school and school systems.
Again, using seed funding and technical assistance, NACME helped
establish more than 40 precollege engineering programs for minority
students. We published a best practices manual on how to organize,
fun and operate effective precollege programs. NACME communications
also published motivational and outreach materials and provided
guidance services to thousands of minority students and parents
each year.
In the period from 1985 through 1988 alone, NACME developed and
expanded 25 precollege efforts, leveraging a total of $2.1 million
and providing services to 15,000 minority students.
Research and Public Policy
Throughout this period, NACME's research served as a foundation for
the organization's strategic directions and programs. It also became
an enormously valuable national resource, providing data, information
and analysis on trends in enrollment, graduation, retention and other
issues affecting minority access to engineering for the federal
government, corporations and the academic community. In 1986, we
initiated the NACME Statistical Report, and in 1989, launched
the NACME Research Letter to disseminate best practices and
other findings of our research.
»» Back to Top
Timeline (1973-2004)
Scroll down to start, or click a year to learn more:
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1973
The Symposium on Minority Participation in Engineering
at the National Academy of Engineering convenes
»» List of Years
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1974
The National Advisory Council for Minorities
in Engineering is created as a result of the Symposium
»» List of Years
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1975
First scholarships awarded to 84 students at 25 engineering schools
»» List of Years
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1980
The National Advisory Council for Minorities in
Engineering becomes the National Action Council
for Minorities in Engineering, when it merges with the
Committee on Minorities in Engineering (CME), the
Minority Engineering Effort (ME3) and the National
Fund for Minority Engineering Students (NFMES)
First NACME Newsletter published
»» List of Years
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1981
NACME's First Forum held in Washington, DC
Established the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award,
with General Electric Foundation
»» List of Years
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1983
NACME completes first full year of Technical Assistance
to pre-college programs with 36 projects
»» List of Years
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1984
Published The Students Guide to Engineering Schools
and Design for Excellence: How to Study Smartly
»» List of Years
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1985
Published Improving the Retention and Graduation of
Minorities in Engineering, in cooperation with NAMEPA
Supported Promoting Success Through Collaborative Ventures
in Pre-college Science and Mathematics, an NAPD publication
»» List of Years
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1986
Inaugurated training for minority engineering program (MEP) directors
Financial Aid Unscrambled: A Guide for Minority Engineering
Students and MEPs USA, Pre-college and College
Minority Engineering Programs disseminated nationally
»» List of Years
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1987
Published A Report to the Field, providing descriptive
analysis of programs and trends in minority engineering education
»» List of Years
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1988
Published Academic Gamesmanship: Becoming a "Master"
Engineering Student
»» List of Years
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1989
Vice President Dan Quayle, Secretary of Education Lauro F.
Calvazos, and Senator John Glenn highlight Forum '89
Published The Sky's Not the Limit, marketing
science-based careers to minority students
»» List of Years
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1990
Launched NACME Research Letter
Published NACME's first Amazing Spider-Man comic book
Established the Corporate Scholars Program
»» List of Years
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1991
Senator Paul Simon read The NACME Research Letter
into the Congressional Record
»» List of Years
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1992
Produced PBS television special, American 2000: Education
for a Competitive Work Force
Published Science is for All Children: A Report to the
New York City Schools Chancellor
»» List of Years
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1993
Produced The Challenge: A Kid's Introduction to Engineering,
an educational video kit
Piloted the NACME Diversity Seminars
Established the W. Lincoln Hawkins Undergraduate Research Fellowship
»» List of Years
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1994
Published NACME Strategic Plan 1994-2000: Approaching
the Millennium
Launched the Engineering Vanguard Program
»» List of Years
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1995
Convened NACME Research and Policy Conference
Launched Math Is Power, a national public service
advertising campaign
»» List of Years
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1996
Received the Presidential Award for Excellence
Achieved national recognition with lead, front page article in the
Wall Street Journal
Introduced NACME Career Expo and Technology Fair
»» List of Years
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1997
Placed "Reaffirming Affirmative Action," an historic resolution
of the NACME Board of Directors, in the Wall Street Journal
Launched the NACME Web site (www.nacme.org)
Published "Engineering and Affirmative Action: Crisis in the Making,"
a special edition of the NACME Research Letter by Dr.
George Campbell Jr., president and CEO
Developed NACME Alumni Association
»» List of Years
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1998
Convened the Summit on the 21st Century Work Force,
a national executive leadership forum
Introduced NACME Leadership Circle Awards
Received the Exemplary Public Interest Contribution (EPIC)
award from the U.S. Department of Labor
Launched Math Is Power website
»» List of Years
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1999
Celebrated 25th Anniversary at Forum '99
New volume of NACME-sponsored research, Access Denied:
Race, Ethnicity and the Scientific Enterprise,
published by Oxford University Press
»» List of Years
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2000
A special edition of the IBM Journal of Research and
Development focused on research contributions made by
NACME alumni
Launched NACME Online Guide to Engineering
Published NACME Alumni Directory
»» List of Years
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2001
Received QEM Network Exemplary Partnership Award
Established partnerships with
SECME
and MESA USA
precollege programs
NACME Board Resolution on College Admissions Criteria
Inaugural issue of The NACME Journal
NACME selected as evaluator (3-year award) for GE Foundation
Math Excellence Initiative (40 projects, distributed nationally)
Merck-NACME Retention Workshop held in NYC
NACME selected to manage Sloan Foundation's Minority
PhD Fellowship Program
»» List of Years
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2002
NACME is featured in PBS "Voices of Vision" series
GuideMeNACME: A RoadMap to Engineering
site launched at National Academy of Engineering
NACME is among founding members of
new NCOURAGES (National
Coalition of Underrepresented Ethnic and Racial Groups in
Engineering & Science) organization
NACME hosts release of GE Fund report, Upping the Numbers:
Using Research-Based Decision Making to Increase Diversity in
the Quantitative Disciplines, New York City
"Pathway to Excellence: Developing a Scientific Workforce That
Looks Like America," advertising insert published in
Scientific American
NACME
Block Grant Program succeeds Vanguard as primary
scholarship tool (13 university partners named; expands
partner institutions to 22, enrolling over 500 students)
First NACME e-training featuring a company delivered by IBM
»» List of Years
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2003
NACME collaborates in an amicus brief with MIT,
Stanford, IBM, Dupont, and the National Academies of Science
and of Engineering in support of University of Michigan in
Supreme Court admissions cases
NACME-GEM Conference in Houston (featuring "The Future of
Affirmative Action in Higher Education" panel with
presidents/chancellors of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana, Maryland
System, and MIT
"A Vision for Parity" [Editorial], published in ExxonMobil
space in NY Times, Washington Post,
Houston Chronicle et al
NACME helps to plan, then participates in AAES Engineering
Diversity Summits, Washington, DC
Florida International U. hosts first NACME Partner Workshop in Miami
»» List of Years
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2004
AAAS and NACME host in Washington, DC, a Sloan
Foundation-sponsored conference to consider impacts on science
and engineering education and outreach programs of Supreme
Court rulings in University of Michigan admissions cases
Additional Block Grant Program institutions selected
NACME 30th Anniversary Gala honors ExxonMobil, Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation and Dr. Percy Pierre
»» List of Years
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