The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.

Before I discuss the necessity to increase diversity in the student makeup of physics programs across the United States, I wanted to share data with you from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in regard to earned income levels of individuals based on how far they have finished in school.  The chart below reveals data collected in the 2004 Census that was collected by the AIP Statistical Research Center.  This data shows the % of individuals, who are ages 25 – 34 years of age, that make $25,000 a year or more and what level of school they have attained.  They break up the schooling categories into High School Dropouts, High School Graduates, and those who went to college and earned their Bachelor’s Degrees.  There is a great discrepancy between men and women of any race in the HS Dropout category.  Almost twice as many men who have dropped out of high school make $25K or more than woman dropouts.  The playing field equals when either men or women earn a college degree.  This data should reinforce to those who are in a position to make a choice about finishing their high school education and working towards earning a college degree that is it worth the effort.

From an AIP report, Untapped Talent:  The African American Presence in Physics and the Geosciences, it was reported that in 2004 women earned 58% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States.  They have seen a 58% increase in bachelor degrees attained by African American females and an increase of 78% for Hispanic American females compared to 10% for white females.  This is compared to a 0% increase for white males and a 37% and 58% increase for African American and Hispanic males respectively.  It is not that the number of white males has not increased in this category; it is just that their numbers have remained approximately the same within the decade span.  This is encouraging news.  However, when we look at the trend of students gaining a degree in Physics or the Physical Sciences only 4% of African Americans earned that degree.  Very few of the degrees awarded from 2000 – 2004 came universities from states west of Louisiana.  The biggest reason is that the majority of those degrees came from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU’s) and they are mainly located in the eastern part of the country.  When we look at Masters degrees and PhD degrees in Physics, again, many of the graduates come from HBCU’s that offer graduate degree programs.  For the non-HBCU’s that had awarded graduate degrees it was theorized that the reason that they were successful in increasing the diversity pool of their graduate classes was their ability to recruit undergraduates from HBCU’s.

The numbers of students who actually received PhD’s in physics who are African American is still very small.  From 1999-2004 only 29 African American men and 13 African American women earned their PhD’s.  AIP states that despite these small numbers they do find an encouraging trend.  The number for the men had nearly doubled since 1993 – 1998 and had tripled for the women.  I believe that the main theme from this report is for Physics departments in the US to work towards recruitment from Universities that have already an advantage in attracting a diverse student body.  That is my hope as well.