Minority Bridge Program

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The project aims to establish bridge programs that facilitate a significant increase in the number of minority (African American, Native American and Hispanic American) physics PhDs.

• Physics as a community ranks at the bottom of science disciplines in educating the growing US population of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native-Americans.
• These underrepresented minorities now make up about a third of the college-age US citizens, yet we graduate less than 10% of our bachelor physics degrees to all of these groups combined. The situation at the doctoral level is even bleaker with only about 5 to 6% of PhDs granted to underrepresented minorities (URMs). Upon reaching the faculty ranks, only about 4.5% of assistant professors are members of these ethnic groups.
• Currently, only about 30 PhDs in physics are granted to URMs every year nationwide (US citizens or permanent residents). This presents the opportunity for much improvement if a program is put in place that facilitates the pursuit of graduate education in physics among these minority students.

1. Identify minority serving institutions (MSIs) that graduate significant numbers of minority students with undergraduate physics degrees.
2. Select about 10 to 12 of these institutions for site visits, aimed at establishing direct contact with faculty and students.
3. Gather information from faculty, students and administrators about factors that influence whether or not minority students pursue graduate work in physics. AIP’s Statistics Research Center will guide our data gathering efforts, and also provide data analysis support.
4. This data will serve to inform future bridge programs that will be set up in collaboration with MSIs and Research Institutions (RIs)
5. RIs will be identified based on the quality of PhD programs, institutional commitment and availability of resources to sustain a bridge program.
6. Identify ‘lessons learned’ from similar programs that have been successful in other disciplines. This will be accomplished through meetings with representatives of such programs.
7. Organize a workshop (June 2010) to bring together faculty and students from MSIs, and faculty and administrators from RIs who are committed to building sustainable bridge programs, and representatives from currently successful bridge programs. The group will work to develop operational plans for establishing effective and sustainable bridge programs in physics. APS project staff will be guided by a steering committee (chaired by APS President, Cherry Murray) and a senior advisory committee. Both groups will include leaders in physics research, education, and minority issues.

Minority Bridge Program Management Team

Theodore Hodapp, APS Director of Education and Diversity	Michelle Corte-Real Iacoletti, APS MBP Project Manager	Arlene Modeste Knowles, APS Career and Diversity Programs Administrator

Contact Information

Michelle Corte-Real Iacoletti
American Physical Society
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740
Phone: (301) 209-3226
Fax: (301) 209-3635
iacoletti@aps.org