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On the eve of the State of the Union address in which President Bush called for increased support for math and science education and improved career opportunities for future engineers, Charles Vest, president emeritus and professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), brought home the same message to a Columbia audience -- but with an important difference in emphasis.
Speaking at Low Library, in the first of a new lecture series sponsored by the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and the Earth Institute's ADVANCE program, Vest stressed the need to facilitate the advancement of women and minorities in the science and engineering fields so as to "reflect the racial and ethnic richness of our society."
Vest's talk, titled "Diversity in Science and Engineering: Personal and Institutional Journeys and Obligations," focused on his own experience of tackling the issue of diversity at MIT and the steps that he and other university administrators have taken to create a level playing field for women and minorities in the nation's engineering and science faculties.
Introducing Vest, Lee C. Bollinger described him as a man of great modesty "who can relate to those in the political sphere as well as to those who feel marginalized and excluded from society."
Vest began his remarks by recounting his upbringing in segregated schools in West Virginia in the 1950s. He expressed gratitude that his journey through life, spent largely on different university campuses, had given him the chance to experience a wide range of cultures and world views.
He went on to discuss the challenge he'd faced as MIT president when a committee led by a faculty colleague of his, Nancy Hopkins, wrote a report showing that women in the school of science were experiencing the university differently from men, and that they were in an inequitable position.
The publication of the Hopkins report in 1999 had come as a revelation, Vest said, exposing the gap between widespread assumptions about women at the school and the reality of their experience. Determined to turn the situation around, he instituted a number of diversity initiatives that are starting to reap results, he reported. There are now seven women on MIT's science faculty compared to none in 1994; and six women on its engineering faculty compared to only one a decade previously. And there is now even a woman president, Susan Hockfield.
"I am in awe of the women faculty members at MIT," Vest said. "They are superstars. They will be the intellectual leaders of the future."
Moreover, there are signs that MIT's progress is beginning to be mirrored at the national level, Vest noted. For instance, the proportion of women in Ph.D. engineering programs was at around 20 percent in 2004, compared with 5 percent in 1980.
Offering a broad outline of what a successful diversity program might entail, Vest listed two major goals: achieving salary equity and paying more attention to recruiting women into graduate programs, "to feed the pipeline."
He added that universities should also strive for clear policies on child care and tenure leave, as well as taking steps to ensure that advancement is based on a "true meritocracy" that is open and inclusive. In addition, career monitoring and mentoring -- activities that, Vest said, were "not always easy for white males" -- should be integral elements of a university's diversity strategy.
In his concluding remarks, Vest pointed out that it is crucial to sustain the excitement of science and engineering to attract students, because the nation's knowledge-based economy and quality of life vitally depend on its strengths in these fields.
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