A scientific quiz
December 5, 2015
I got twelve pretty quickly but I’d have to think a little harder for significantly more than that.
DrugMonkey
biomedical research, just another job…
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biomedical research, just another job…
I got twelve pretty quickly but I’d have to think a little harder for significantly more than that.
DrugMonkey 
December 5, 2015 at 3:56 pm
Are Asian scientists (both East and Indian/Pakistani) rare at all in your subfield? Sure not in mine. Not what I suspect what Dnlee was getting at, I suppose.
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December 5, 2015 at 4:44 pm
Lots of Asian scientists. If DNLee was looking for black or Hispanic scholars, I regrettably don’t know any.
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December 5, 2015 at 6:45 pm
Off the top of my head, I could think of three African-Americans, several Hispanics (from Spain, not Latin America), and many Asians and Asian-Americans. Very few women of any heritage, though.
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December 5, 2015 at 11:29 pm
Aside from south and east asians, Do persians or arabs count?
Do these people need to be professors or do postdocs and students count?
Majority of the folks in my department are not European white. But sadly I could only think of four blacks and only two of them are African American.
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December 6, 2015 at 9:33 am
I interpreted the question as professors but perhaps she meant a broader pool of colleagues.
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December 6, 2015 at 10:28 am
Definitely can’t name a black or Latino man or woman professor “in my field”. Several Asians of both genders, and a smattering of Indians.
Anecdotally, virtually all the non-Asian URM PhDs I knew in grad school have gone into industry.
Does anyone know if the industry workforce is more diverse than the academic one?
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December 6, 2015 at 11:39 am
In my field it would be nearly the reverse. Many famous people are from abroad with ethnic background. Plus if you watch TV all research MDs are Indian, are they not?
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December 7, 2015 at 8:07 am
If you’re strictly talking non-white, that’s easy – plenty of Indians and Chinese in my field.
If you mean URMs and/or African Americans, err… maybe three or four off the top of my head.
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December 7, 2015 at 8:16 am
I’m sure she means native URMs; Asians and other foreigners don’t count. Either way, you don’t “win” if you can name 5-10 colleagues from URMs. The game is rigged, and that’s the point shes’s trying to make. We all lose.
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December 7, 2015 at 11:00 am
In my field, for asst/assoc/full profs, I can think of 2 African-American men and 3 American Hispanics, including myself (technically we are white, but that’s not what we’re going for here, right?). There are quite a few (5-10) Latinos from Europe and Latin America.
Four out of 8 of the people in my lab are URMs, so…progress?
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December 7, 2015 at 12:00 pm
I can only get to 4.
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December 7, 2015 at 2:58 pm
Four out of 8 of the people in my lab are URMs, so…progress?
Not if they don’t manage to transition to professorial positions…..
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December 7, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Super-easy if Asians and Latin-Americans count. Basically impossible if not.
(Field: systems neuroscience)
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December 7, 2015 at 9:42 pm
Spaniards and South Americans do not count as URMs, at least at the med school I work at.
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December 8, 2015 at 2:16 pm
URM breakfast at ACNP this year had <25 peeps (incl. people from ALL levels)…
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December 8, 2015 at 2:19 pm
From what I usually see looking around at the audience during the larger sessions at ACNP, this is about par for the course. This meeting leans older and more senior, not to mention more clinical-psychological/psychiatrical so it is hardly surprising.
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December 8, 2015 at 3:21 pm
I’m trudging trough grad admissions files now. In the 300 or so domestic applicants, there are 10 Hispanic, 10 Puerto Rican, 6 Vietnamese, and 2 African-American students. We’ll invite at least half of the URM students, but we will be lucky to get 1 or 2 to come to our lily-white university. Apparently URM’s are not attracted to our field/program/university in significant numbers.
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December 8, 2015 at 6:12 pm
we will be lucky to get 1 or 2 to come to our lily-white university
Do you have a grad – diversity committee? Do they ask students why they don’t come? Do you get the grad student hosts to inquire about concerns? What are you doing to change this course?
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December 8, 2015 at 6:35 pm
“Do they ask students why they don’t come?”
We ask all students that turn us down why they don’t come. Usually they have offers from prestigious universities on the coasts.
“What are you doing to change this course?”
We’ve instituted “preview weekends” in the fall to bring in URM students and let them see what a great place we have and ask questions of multiple programs. It has worked to get us more applications from URM students. I haven’t seen evidence that more of them come here.
I think a significant problem is not having many similar students already, so no feeling of community.
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December 8, 2015 at 6:44 pm
Usually they have offers from prestigious universities on the coasts.
This suggests that you do not have this problem with comparably qualified white candidates?
I think a significant problem is not having many similar students already, so no feeling of community.
The experiences I have in seeking similar information supports this, and also the lack of diversity of the faculty. closely followed by “the community”. so I was looking to see if you had specifics or just inferred this.
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December 8, 2015 at 6:46 pm
nb, I do recognize that “I had a better offer from Prestige U” can be something that seems an easier thing to say even if the real reason is “I don’t feel comfortable in your lilywhite community/U/dept”.
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December 8, 2015 at 7:23 pm
“Usually they have offers from prestigious universities on the coasts.
-This suggests that you do not have this problem with comparably qualified white candidates? ”
There is always competition for the highly qualified students, but we get very good students. There seems to be much stronger competition for the highly qualified URM students.
The administration is talking about how to develop a plan to increase diversity in the faculty. I have no idea what they are considering trying. Probably there will be a committee directive to search committees to do something different, but that would be a slow, slow change if it even worked.
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December 8, 2015 at 7:24 pm
Has anyone ever suggested trying to outbid the PrestigeU offers with an extra $5K to $10K on the stipend?
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December 8, 2015 at 10:15 pm
I can’t even name 12 people in my field.
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December 9, 2015 at 5:24 am
“Has anyone ever suggested trying to outbid the PrestigeU offers with an extra $5K to $10K on the stipend?”
If you mean a larger stipend for everyone, I tried but couldn’t make that happen. If you mean as a signing bonus for URM students, we should look at that.
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December 9, 2015 at 7:44 am
The latter. Try it b/c the outraged reactions will be very telling.
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