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"Our country is facing a shortage of professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and a shortage of students entering those fields," said Irving Pressley McPhail, Ed.D., executive vice president and chief operating officer for National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), at the organization's 2008 National Symposium on Tuesday, May 27.
"How can we protect American competitiveness in STEM by tapping minorities traditionally underrepresented in those fields?" continued McPhail.
The biennial symposium, held in Vienna, Va., May 27-29, 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 comes from 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 chief executive officer.
The NACME symposium featured expert speakers from across the nation, including William Kirwan, chancellor, University System of Maryland; William P. Dee, NACME chairman of the board and president and CEO, Malcolm Pirnie; Norman R. Augustine, Chairman, Rising Above the Gathering Storm Committee; Dr. Craig R. Barrett, Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation; Nicholas Donofrio, executive vice president, Innovation & Technology, IBM Corporation; and Juan Williams, national political correspondent and author.
Kirwan, who was awarded NACME's highest honor, the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award, for his leadership and contributions to diversity in engineering, warned that America is facing an "education deficit" for the first time in its history.
"This deficit is threatening our status as the world's economic superpower," Kirwan said.
While sounding the alarm on this educational and economic crisis, the symposium also called some of the nation's finest minds into action to help increase awareness and develop and implement policy change.
"There is a solution to America's endangered competitiveness," said McPhail. "We must adopt policies that motivate more underrepresented minorities to choose STEM careers-starting early, in the middle grades."
Dee 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."
In his closing address, Dee also issued several calls to action targeting several constituencies, including
infusing STEM throughout K-12 education;
removing systemic barriers to college admission by addressing financial aid and admissions policies; and
forming partnerships with schools to promote STEM careers.
"My vision," said Dee, "is that through effective partnership with educational, governmental, and business leadership, the United States will produce hundreds of thousands of new engineers who answer the grand engineering challenges that we have heard about-and that a significant portion of those engineers will be from underrepresented minority groups."
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