The National Action Council on Minorities in Engineering hosted two powerful days of presentations and discussions May 27–29, 2008, sounding an alarm on the shortage of professionals in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields and the shortage of underrepresented minority students entering those fields.

The biennial symposium drew more than 200 leaders from business, education and government sectors to explore the theme Confronting the “New” American Dilemma: Retaining Scientific and Technological Leadership in a “Flatter” World.

“The ‘New’ American Dilemma is this nation’s failure to educate and develop a growing proportion of its potential talent base—African Americans, Latinos and American Indians—as its need for people with skills in science and engineering is escalating,” explained John Brooks Slaughter, Ph.D., NACME president and CEO.

“There is a solution to America’s endangered competitiveness,” said Irving Pressley McPhail, Ed.D., NACME executive vice president and COO. “We must adopt policies that motivate more underrepresented minorities to choose STEM careers—starting early, in the middle grades.”

William P. Dee, NACME chairman of the board and president and CEO, Malcolm Pirnie, concurred.

“‘Confronting’ is an action word,” he said. “We can’t just talk about these issues. We have to consider what we should be doing.”

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