Excellence Through Diversity

Interviews conducted and compiled by Margaret Wise Petrochenkov, Ph.D.
Fellowship Programs Unit
Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel
National Research Council
National Academy Press
Washington, D.C. 1996

like those ancient sailors/ our group/ here & now
ford fellows & co./having left behind more
familiar & comfortable shores
to strike out & settle a new land
our sole map given us by the old ones
a map made only of stars
--From Closing Remarks by Caroline Sinavaiana 1990 Ford Fellows Conference, Irvine, California, October 19, 1990

This booklet is dedicated to all the Ford fellows, the stars by which a new generation of scholars will be guided. The scope of this publication is too narrow to document the achievements of all these stellar individuals. We have therefore opted to interview a cross section of Ford fellows who represent the population in terms of ethnic diversity, range of academic disciplines, divergence in academic rank, and all-round excellence. The result is a tribute not only to the fellows we have written about but also to the many others who have been so worthy of support and are now so worthy of praise.

The Ford Foundation has funded a variety of programs aimed at promoting academic excellence and advancing the careers of ethnically diverse scholars since the early l960s. Over the past thirty years, these scholars have contributed groundbreaking scholarship to the academic world, and have served as role models and mentors for a new generation of faculty. No set of fellowship programs has been more important to this effort than those administered by the National Research Council (NRC) in Washington, DC.

In l979, at the foundation’s request, the NRC initiated the Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities program. Since then, over 500 faculty members have been selected for these highly competitive awards. Since l986, the NRC has also administered the foundation’s Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellowships programs, which are focused on increasing the underrepresentation of minorities on college faculties. These two fellowship programs identify outstanding scholars who are embarking upon academic and research careers. To date, over 700 fellows across the country have received these multi-year awards. Taken together, the three Ford/NRC fellowship programs represent the largest and longest commitment from the private philanthropic sector to increase the diversity of the professoriate.

This NRC publication brings together for the first time profiles of 42 of the more than 1,200 Ford Fellows. It was compiled by NRC staffer, Dr. Margaret Wise Petrochenkov, and we hope that it begins to convey the remarkable achievements, struggles, insights and spirit of Ford fellows. In a time when some policy makers and administrators have questioned the value and success of programs like these, the Ford Foundation believes that much can be learned from an examination of the experiences of these extraordinarily gifted individuals who have added so much to the quality and vitality of the academic enterprise.

The Ford Foundation’s predoctoral, dissertation, and postdoctoral fellowship programs seek to increase the presence of underrepresented minorities on college faculties. Awardees later serve as role models and mentors for a new generation of scholars. A number of the current Ford fellows were fortunate enough in their childhood years to encounter mentors who inspired them not only to pursue higher education, but to enter into an academic career.

Portia Katrenia Maultsby (Post 84) traces her desire to be an academic back to her mother, who was a committed schoolteacher. The segregated school system in Florida where Maultsby attended and where her mother taught was not supplied with up-to-date equipment. Students were given discarded textbooks from the white schools. Teachers such as Maultsby’s mother bought new textbooks, as did the black branch of the public library. Several evenings a week teachers conducted tutoring sessions in the evenings with these books. One night might be devoted to science, another to English and literature, another to mathematics. The difference between the two school systems, as Maultsby sees it, was in the allocation of resources, not in the quality of the students or the teachers.

As she grew older, Maultsby became acutely aware of how blacks were misrepresented and slighted in her textbooks, and she decided to become a college teacher even before she fully understood what that would entail. The connection to her community was and still is strong. Maultsby is a musician as well as a scholar. When she moved to Indiana, her home community invited her group from Indiana University to perform a concert and offered her the keys to the city. Solid preparation and community support established a firm foundation for Maultsby as she pursued her twin track of music performance and music scholarship.

The parents of Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Post 87) were both teachers. Her father was a junior high school principal and editor of The Negro History Bulletin. Many prominent black historians, such as Carter G. Woodson, John Hope Franklin, Benjamin Quarles, Rayford W. Logan, and Charles Wesley, frequented her family’s home, so Higginbotham grew up with excellent academic role models.

The mother of Willetta Greene-Johnson (Post 88) provided a very visible and immediate female role model—she received a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1965. Lynn Bolles (Post 86) also came from an educated family. She did not think about whether to become an academic; she wondered which kind of professional to become. In the same way, Neo Damian Martinez (Post 92) found the academic world to be an obvious choice, since his father was a professor.

The parents of some Ford fellows have followed nontraditional paths in their pursuit of higher education. James Peoples (Post 88) entered graduate school four years after his father. The mother of Bai Akridge (Post 82) completed her undergraduate degree when she was nearly 65 years old. Barbara Williams Lewis (Pre 92), who returned to school after a more than 20-year lapse, worked toward her undergraduate degree at the same time her daughter did. These familial role models have contributed to the success of the Ford fellows, and the fellows in turn are likely to inspire their own children, students, and possibly even their parents, to make a valuable contribution to teaching and research.

I felt sometimes that I’d have a nervous breakdown, but I had to function—I had a little boy. While other graduate students might ponder such a gratuitous escape, I had to be in the playground. He kept me sane.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham began graduate school as a divorced mother with a four-year-old child. She had to juggle child care with study and could not work late at the library. None of her female classmates had children, and most had no break in their studies between undergraduate and graduate work. Raising a family while in graduate school is a major challenge that has been met by many Ford Fellows. Jeane Marie Coburn Breinig (Pre 88, Diss 94) believes that her children have kept her balanced, and not just academically. They provide a certain perspective and grounding for her studies as well as for her life.

Claudia Tate (Post 86) was an atypical Harvard graduate student in that she got married in her first year of graduate school and gave birth to her son during spring break of her second year. She was subsequently divorced and so completed graduate school as a single mother at an institution where few women were married, even less had children, and fewer still were people of color. When she enrolled in 1969, Tate recounts that the only black professor in the English department at Harvard was flown in one day a week. She did not have a mentor, and when she became pregnant her professors and colleagues appeared to question her resolve. In her words: “I felt sometimes that I’d have a nervous breakdown, but I had to function—I had a little boy. While other graduate students might ponder such a gratuitous escape, I had to be in the playground. He kept me sane.”

Danell Rene Garcia, the companion of Darryl Babe Wilson (Pre 94) died when their twin sons, Boss and Hoss, were less than two years old. For his children’s sake, Wilson decided to enroll at the University of California, Davis, in 1987, and his great success allowed him to advance quickly. In 1988 he received a President’s Undergraduate Fellowship for Poetry and participated in the Minorities Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship in Letters and Science for three years. Although he was awarded a fellowship and fee remission for his M.A. in American Indian studies at the University of Arizona, Wilson was required to work at two non-paying jobs on campus.

Today, Wilson focuses much of his energy on the needs of young people. During the summers of 1994 through 1996, he taught creative writing in indigenous languages and in English at the American Indian Language Development Institute at the University of Arizona. He also taught writing to fifth graders at Lawrence Elementary School on the Yaqui reservation near Tucson. Wilson hopes to get the work of these children published.

Wilson brings his sons to the Ford fellows conferences, where he splits his time between the twins and the agenda. He would like to spend more time at the conference itself, but the children must come first. As he has stated: “I want to record our history and encourage young people to get into education and use their talent to help maintain our culture, tradition, and language.” Children certainly present challenges for graduate students, but Wilson and many other Ford fellows have found inspiration and grounding through them.

Exceptional ability and great determination have permitted Ford Fellows to overcome formidable obstacles while in pursuit of their undergraduate and graduate education. Patricia Andrea Davis (Pre 86) was only the second minority student to enroll in her department’s material science program, and she recounts that jokes about the last one hadn’t yet died down. She often thought of quitting, but after receiving support from the Ford Foundation, and after attending her first Ford fellows conference, she was inspired to continue.

The financial hardships of undergraduate and graduate study have been daunting for a number of fellows, but their talent and drive has allowed them to succeed. Dorceta E. Taylor (Diss 89) identifies blinding poverty as the most serious obstacle that she had to overcome. She attended Northeastern University as an undergraduate and then was admitted to Yale University for graduate work. As late as October, loans for the semester had not been approved, and she was desperate for money. When she told her fellow graduate students of her financial difficulties, one recommended that she cash in some of her bonds and another that she ask her parents to wire some money. Her peers were clearly from a more privileged background and could not understand her difficulties. The lack of funds was an obstacle, but one that Taylor was able to overcome.

John Carlos Garza (Pre 92) announced to his family when he was four years old that he wanted to be a research scientist and do the first brain transplant. For a time, though, it did not appear that he would even complete high school. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and got into what he describes as destructive situations. At age 19 he decided to straighten out his life. Through a variety of programs similar in type to those provided by the Ford Foundation, Garza entered community college. He was admitted to the University of California, San Diego, through affirmative action, and subsequently graduated in the top 4 percent of his class.

Even with the funding provided by the Ford Foundation, Garza still has substantial school loans to pay off, but he has been able to enter the field of integrative biology, which is ethnically nondiverse. “The Ford Foundation has made it possible for me to become successful in a field where it’s not easy to be successful.” Garza epitomizes the success of affirmative action. When provided with the opportunity, he was able to achieve success in a field where minority representation is extremely low.

Barbara Williams Lewis (Pre 92) began college in 1963, but completed only one year. Twenty-six years later she returned to college with the idea of completing an associate degree, and then a baccalaureate. Once into the academic fray, however, Lewis could not turn back. Five days after she completed her undergraduate degree, she started graduate school.

During her undergraduate study Lewis and her three children were on welfare. After receiving her Ford fellowship Lewis got off welfare and completed her Ph.D. course work in three years. She received a university fellowship for her final dissertation year, which enabled her to complete her graduate education in four years. In her own words: “I’m already 50 years old, so I need to go fast.”

Lewis’s story has already appeared in the media. Articles about her have been published in the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California Chronicle, and she appeared on Bill Cosby’s show “You Bet Your Life,” Julie Eddy’s program, and on a show about domestic violence hosted by Les Brown. The rapid pace of her studies has not prevented Lewis from completing her own novel; she is also editing a critical volume on Toni Morrison, arranging to turn her dissertation into a book, and mentoring four students. To help other late-blooming students, she has established the Barbara Williams Lewis Scholarship for Reentry Women at Los Angeles City College.

Elizabeth Mendez (Diss 93) has had different obstacles to surmount. Mendez is physically impaired, and, unfortunately, the appropriate facilities to accommodate her were lacking in both undergraduate and graduate school. Her senior thesis adviser and others trained Mendez to work around the disadvantages. In graduate school her institution allowed her to use the services of a laboratory technician. The New York State Department of Education and the Rockefeller Foundation paid for some necessary accommodations.

Mendez is also exceptional in that there are very few scholars of color in cell biology. “I have yet to encounter a minority faculty member. It was disheartening to have no [role]] model.” Indeed, Davis, Greene-Johnson, Garza, Lewis, and Mendez will all now serve as significant role models for students of color, nontraditional students, and physically impaired students—role models that were not available when they entered their graduate programs.

Minority representation is small in the U.S. professoriate, but the underrepresentation is particularly stark in science and engineering. According to the NRC’s 1993 Survey of Doctorate Recipients (National Academy Press, Washington, DC), Black/African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans make up only 5.2 percent of science and engineering faculty employed at four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Broken down further, members of these ethnic groups constitute only 4.3 percent of the biology faculty, 5.3 percent of the computer science faculty, and 5.8 percent of the chemistry faculty.

Maria Elena Zavala (Post 82) knows of only one other Chicana botanist. Zavala jokes that when she attends a professional meeting, she represents 50 percent of Chicana botanists, but if both she and her colleague attend, they represent 100 percent. Zavala and many other Ford fellows are assailing the ivory tower of the academic community.

Robbin Nicole Chapman (Pre 94) is working in the Artificial Intelligence Lab with the Natural Language Processing Unit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is developing a system that will translate American Sign Language into spoken English. In the summer of 1993, Chapman worked at NASA in the Space Life Sciences program. The past two summers she was involved with the Space Shuttle Life Sciences Support Facility at Kennedy Space Center, which is responsible for life science experiments on the shuttle. Like Zavala, Chapman encounters few minority scholars in her field of science and even fewer minority women.

Jerrel Louis Yakel (Post 91) conducts research in neuroscience. His interest in biology began with a high school assignment to collect 50 insects, and he recounts that he became hooked forever the day he made an electrical recording from a nerve cell while an undergraduate. From 1988 to 1991, Yakel did postdoctoral work at the Laboratoire de Neurobiologie at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. Yakel argues that the opportunity to travel and do collaborative research across international borders is one of the most appealing aspects of an academic career. Since 1993, Yakel has been employed at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Here and abroad, he has served as a superlative role model for success in research. Yakel’s success is all the more significant in that, according to the NRC statistics, Native Americans constitute less than one percent of all employed doctoral recipients in the field of biology.

A baking soda and vinegar experiment started Luis Enrique Martinez (Pre 92) on his career in science. Martinez lacked formal mentorship and experienced homesickness, in part because he was the only person of color in his graduate program. “You have to prove yourself, because they always wonder if you’re there just because of your color. You have to work harder or achieve more. Today, he is involved in asymmetric catalysis and has been working on new methods of manufacturing molecules for the production of drugs, one of which is an AIDS medication. In his words, the field is “very white and very male.” Martinez and many other Ford fellows have taken on the challenge to assail the ivory tower in disciplines lacking diversity in race and gender.

When Nicolas Kanellos (Post 86) received his degree, it was impossible to formally study what he now teaches—U. S. Hispanic literature and culture in the United States. Through the publishing house he helped to found, Arte Publico, Kanellos has discovered writers from the last two centuries and provides a showcase for new creative writers. As an assistant professor, Kanellos taught three newly created courses on Hispanic literature and culture, wrote proposals, ran a theater group, edited a literary magazine, and did community work. The Ford fellowship enabled him to complete his first book of historical research on Chicano theater, which was a milestone in the field. His work in particular has helped promote the study of Hispanic literature and theater.

Many Ford fellows are engaged in ethnic studies, and the result of their scholarship is particularly salient because in the past these topics were not studied sufficiently, or were not studied by members of the ethnic groups involved. Caroline Sinavaiana (Diss 88) received her degree in American studies, but her specialization was actually in Samoan and African-American literature. There was no department that coincided exactly with her specialization. Sinavaiana wrote her dissertation on the fale áitu Samoan performance event, that she analyzed as a secularized ritual which could effect social change. Her work functions as an indigenous critique of colonialism.

Jeane Marie Coburn Breinig (Pre 88, Diss 94) received her degree from the University of Washington in English. Her work articulates the Native Alaskan/Canadian Haida literary tradition and contextualizes the tradition in discourses of orality, literacy, and the construction of Haida identity. Breinig notes that Native literature has still not received the recognition it deserves, and that the larger programs are concentrated at a few universities.

Edward Escobar (Post 87) has managed to create a department of Chicano studies at Arizona State University. Escobar has labored diligently to give national recognition to Chicano history. As he recounts, the Journal of American History had never published an article on Chicano history before the last two years. “March 1993 was the first article. It was mine, so I know. I don’t think we’re given a lot of legitimacy.”

Escobar’s parents were activists in the Union Movement in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. He inherited from them the desire to redress wrongs and has sought to make higher education more accessible to Mexican Americans. At present he is completing a history of the relations between Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles police from 1900 through 1945.

When Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Diss 93) first enrolled in the University of Iowa’s American Studies program, there was not a single Chicana faculty member on campus. After a year of culture shock, she dropped out of the program. Four years later she entered graduate school at the University of New Mexico. Gaspar de Alba has just developed the first Chicana/Lesbian course at UCLA where she is a new faculty member in the Cesar Chavez Center of Chicano/a Studies. She is interested in issues of identity as well as Chicano studies. Her focus on Chicano popular culture and popular art is unique. She began her career in creative writing, but then realized that she would need a Ph.D. to be able to teach. Her dissertation, entitled “Mi Casa [No]] Es Su Casa: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation Exhibit,” received the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize for the best dissertation in American studies in 1994. She is on contract with the University of Texas Press for a book based on her dissertation and hopes to finish a novel on Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz and an anthology on popular culture in the near future.

All of these Ford fellows have worked to establish legitimacy for historical, literary, and cultural aspects of ethnic studies in their native cultures. The quality of their work alone has gone very far in that direction.

Jose Unpingco (Pre 92) is specializing in underwater acoustics, which may be applied to the detection of submarines or marine wildlife. His research experience began early in his college career. Dr. Cimadevilla, who was then head of the Minority Access to Research Careers program at his undergraduate institution, encouraged him to go to graduate school. Unpingco has not found it possible to do collaborative research with other Ford fellows, since he is the only engineering student specializing in digital signal processing. He has, however, used his expertise to set up the Ford Fellows Discussion Group on the Internet, which has great potential to aid all the fellows.

After completing his doctoral exams, Unpingco had some difficulty finding a research laboratory, since he already had a very well-defined idea about his topic of research and was not interested in adapting his project to suit anyone else. He found that the Ford funding allowed him to approach professors for collaboration, even if his project did not fit exactly with the researchers’ grants.

Since students of color are somewhat rare in engineering programs, Unpingco advises incoming graduate students to be very careful about the institution they select. He received a recruitment offer from an Ivy League university but turned it down: “I felt like I had a guest pass to someone’s country club.” He suggests that students go to a place where they can “recharge their batteries” when things go wrong and where they have a good support system. In any case, as Unpingco has noted: “My widgets don’t care what I look like.” He envisions a future leadership role in which it may be said of him: “Here’s a guy working on the cutting edge of his field who doesn’t look like everyone else.”

The year before Lynn Berat (Diss 87 and Post 93) went on tenure for her dissertation award, she spent a year on a Fulbright fellowship in South Africa. Her thesis dealt with the port of Namibia, and was serendipitously published by the Yale Press the very week of Namibian independence.

The postdoctoral fellowship allowed Berat to be in South Africa at a key moment in the country’s history. She was asked to organize a group that took part in observing the first free elections in South Africa. Her group was stationed in the OXFAM Canada Office in Durban, where Nelson Mandela voted. As Berat recounts: “I was able to see this incredible transformation. I was able to witness everything I’d worked for and written about.”

Berat studies international and comparative law from a historical perspective. She has been awarded both Ford dissertation and postdoctoral fellowships. Berat views herself as much more than an academic—she is also a policy maker, an activist, and a consultant drawn to development and human rights issues. She spent five years at the Ford Foundation in international development and has founded International Initiatives, a consulting firm that promotes environmentally responsible trade, tourism, and development projects. One project established a nongovernmental agency linked to the Manhattan Task Force on AIDS, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health in South Africa. With a colleague from the University of Florida, Berat has organized a retrospective/prospective seminar in South Africa to bring judges from international courts and from all the countries in Africa to interact with scholars and African officials.

Berat firmly advises minority students and scholars to actively network and interact with each other. She also offers some pragmatic advice to graduate students and young scholars: “Make sure you have a surge compressor on your computer!”

Ford fellows have collaborated with each other on books, projects, films, articles, and conferences. Academics in the fields of biomedical research, engineering, computer science, and physics often regret that there are too few specialists in these areas to facilitate the kind of collaboration that is so successful among practitioners of the social sciences, humanities, and arts.

Carroll Parrott Blue (Post 87) and Caroline Sinavaiana (Diss 88) were recently awarded a Rockefeller grant to collaborate with an inter-cultural team on a project called “Building Sustainable Community Through Art.” It includes folk-theater, storytelling, film, and other arts in the service of critical community issues and focuses especially on the area of environmental justice.

Blue is involved in both teaching and film making. Her film credits include Mystery of the Senses: Vision, Nigerian Art—Kindred Spirits, Conversations with Roy DeCarava, Varnette’s World: A Study of a Young Artist, and Two Women. She was a segment producer for Eyes on the Prize, Series II, and production assistant for Jane Fonda’s films Nine to Five, On Golden Pond and Rollover. She has involved other Ford fellows in her film projects, including Portia Maultsby (Post 84) in the second series of Eyes on the Prize.

Maultsby recommended Blue for a one-semester teaching position at Indiana, and, with the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, Blue set up meetings between film makers and professors as part of a faculty development project. Maultsby has also worked on various programs and projects with Gwen Robinson (Post 86), Gloria Gibson-Hudson (Post 92), and Anthony Brown (Pre 87). Her own specialization in African American religious and popular music and performance often leads her beyond the normal scholarly boundaries of a music or ethnic studies department.

Literary scholars who study African American or Hispanic literatures often find common ground for collaboration. At the 1994 Annual Ford Fellows Conference, Carolyn Jones (Post 93) and Barbara Lewis (Pre 92) discovered that they shared a strong interest in Toni Morrison’s writing. Interaction at the conference has led to a solid working relationship. Jones is now writing one of the essays in the volume Lewis is editing on Morrison’s Jazz.

James H. Peoples (Post 88) and Lisa Fe Saunders (Post 91) both attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, in the economics department. At the time he applied for a postdoctoral fellowship, Peoples was considering leaving academe. His teaching and service loads were such that he had little time to work on publications. After receiving a postdoctoral fellowship, Peoples encouraged Saunders to apply, and she received a Ford postdoctoral fellowship three years later. The networks that Peoples established while on fellowship tenure were later shared with Saunders. Their collaboration led to an important publication in The Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 47 (October 1993) entitled “Trucking Deregulation and the Black/White Wage Gap.” Peoples has noted that this publication was critical in his career, especially since it appeared in one of the premier journals in the field of economics.

Luis Enrique Martinez (Pre 92) talks about collaborations he would like to carry out in the future with other Ford fellows who are humanities specialists. Martinez is a researcher in organic chemistry dealing with asymmetric catalysis, but the collaborations he proposes concern society and science. He would like to delve into questions of how science shapes our lives and what types of knowledge emerge in society from research. Such ventures could help bridge the gap between scholars in science and the humanities.

A few fellows have indicated that although they have not collaborated in any formal fashion with other Ford fellows, they have established a human resources network. When they need a specialist in another discipline, they know where to look. Teresita Martinez-Vergne (Post 92) says that she always knows she can count on the fellows when she puts together a panel for a professional meeting.

Being faculty of color in a predominantly white institution is a challenge. I’d rather not spend time being a change agent, but it comes with the territory.

Several Ford fellows have become deans and administrators at their academic institutions. They are, therefore, now in position to make substantial administrative changes in the structure of America’s future faculty. As director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia, R. Baxter Miller (Post 86) has made 11 appointments so far. He also managed to move the Langston Hughes Review to his institution. As he sees it, his position allows him to fulfill Ralph Waldo Emerson’s suggestion that the fundamental goal of the scholar is to leave the situation of the world better than when found.

As associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Michigan, Warren C. Whatley (Post 86) has mentored minority faculty as well as students. “Being faculty of color in a predominantly white institution is a challenge. I’d rather not spend time being a change agent, but it comes with the territory.” As a student, Whatley thought that if you “put your nose to the grindstone, you will succeed,” but he has learned that networking is critical in advancing an academic career. He now values the kind of networking that goes on among Ford fellows and uses the Ford conference to scout for new faculty.

When Huey Perry (Post 86) was asked to become dean of the School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at Louisiana State University in 1990, he took on the role with great trepidation, because he feared leaving the “comfortable” world of teaching and research. In his role as dean, however, he can effect change. He chose the new department chair for political science and has worked with him on new appointments to make the department more rigorous. His school is establishing a Ph.D. program that will begin admitting students this year and for which some additional faculty will need to be chosen. Although he often works nearly 70 hours per week, Perry has found that his scholarly productivity has actually increased during the past five years.

After spending last year in Washington, DC as an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, Eugene Garcia (Post 80) has accepted a position as dean of the School of Education at Stanford University. Formerly, he was a dean at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Much like Perry, Garcia has found that even with his administrative duties he publishes as much as he did before he became a dean. Significantly, Garcia has served in diverse educational sectors and has had the opportunity to effect policy at his university and beyond.

The Ford fellowship programs seek to increase the diversity and quality of tomorrow’s faculties in the United States. Through recruitment and administration at the university level, Miller, Whatley, Perry, and Garcia are doing much to achieve these goals.

I’ve had people who changed majors [to chemistry] after my course. I’m proud of getting an F student at midterm to a C at the end of the course.

Just prior to the 1988 Annual Ford Fellows Conference, when she planned to attend the session on “Balancing Life and Career,” Willetta Greene-Johnson (Post 88) went into labor early and gave birth to her son. Though she never made it to the conference that year, she did learn a great deal about balancing life and career.

Upon entering the graduate program in physics at the University of Chicago, Greene-Johnson found that she was the only African American in the program, a circumstance that continued for the next seven and one-half years. The city of Chicago attracted the musician in Greene-Johnson, who admits that she spent far too much time in the studio during graduate school. The physics department at the University of Chicago was “very unfriendly to anyone who didn’t fit that stark European mode; even white males sometimes didn’t fit in.”

Greene-Johnson does not approve of the exclusive club mentality and is critical of professors who identify stars and then concentrate all their efforts on those individuals. “We should see it as a mission to educate all Americans in the sciences.” Greene-Johnson has 103 students and argues that three office hours per week is not enough. “I’ve had people who changed majors [to chemistry] after my course. I’m proud of getting an F student at midterm to a C at the end of the course.”

Colleagues have told her that she should spend less time teaching and more time on research. Greene-Johnson is currently working on gas-surface interactions and their spectral analysis, but admits that she finds it hard to get research done during the semester, and family responsibilities prevent research on weekends. She fears that her more concerted focus on teaching may harm her chances at tenure, but as she puts it: “Even if I don’t get tenure, I’ll be somewhere teaching.”

Greene-Johnson believes that individuals considering graduate school should be very focused and love teaching. “Don’t be sensitive. Try to have a thick skin. If you come looking for a battle, you will surely find one. There is racism in America, but could it just be that you’re not wearing deodorant?” Her warmth and ebullient sense of humor clearly contribute to her excellence as a teacher, scholar, and role model.

The Ford postdoctoral fellowships for minorities provide recipients with a year’s support away from their employment institution, where heavy teaching and service responsibilities often interfere with research. Feedback from postdoctoral awardees indicates that this year of support has changed their lives and careers.

Nicolas Kanellos (Post 86) attributes an additional salary increase he received at the University of Houston to his Ford postdoctoral fellowship. His research year funded by the fellowship made possible the publication of his History of Hispanic Theater in the United States: Origins to 1940, which won three awards. Kanellos’s research also established a methodology for recovering texts of the past.

Kanellos is a prolific researcher and editor. He has received awards for his Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States and The Hispanic American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in the United States. He has been recognized for his work at the University of Houston, in his state and region, and at the national level. He received the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature, presented by President Reagan at the White House in 1988, and an American Book Award in 1989. National service includes appointment to the Literature Policy Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 (three-year term) and the College Board Task Force on the Arts in Education in the United States (1994). Recently, President Clinton appointed Kanellos to a six-year term on the National Council on the Humanities.

Many Ford fellows are prolific researchers with impressive publication lists. R. Baxter Miller (Post 86) says of his record: “If you told me at age 46 Id be looking at 100 publications and six to eight books, that would be beyond where I thought I’d go.” The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes, which Miller wrote following his fellowship tenure, received an American Book Award in 1991. “The award has pushed me from being a very good professor to being a distinguished professor.”

Huey Perry (Post 86) calls the postdoctoral fellowship “the defining moment in my professional career.” He was able to separate himself from all the responsibilities at his university. “I read all the major works that had ever been written on my area. I read, contemplated, and took notes. That provided a basis for the tremendous publications I’ve been able to produce during the last five years.” Perry credits the research he was able to accomplish during his year of fellowship tenure for transforming his career from average to outstanding. He has also been recognized for his scholarship by other agencies. Recently, he received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a three-year study on the impact of black political participation on governmental policies and actions in 14 cities.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Post 87) supplies a long list of accomplishments that she can trace to her Ford Foundation fellowship tenure. She was able to formulate an article, and reconceptualize her dissertation for transformation into a book, and write Righteous Discontent, which received four awards. Higginbotham believes that these publications contributed to her receiving tenure.

I’m overwhelmed just doing a fraction of what I’m asked to do. . . . I’m inundated because I’m the only black woman tenured in arts & sciences and the School of Divinity [at Harvard].

Tenure decisions are usually based on scholarship, teaching, and academic service, with heavy emphasis on scholarship. Service is a double bind because new faculty members are usually required to serve on many time-consuming committees and therefore fail to publish enough to ensure tenure. Since there are so few women and minorities in academe, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham believes that the service required of women, particularly of female faculty of color, is particularly burdensome. “I’m overwhelmed just doing a fraction of what I’m asked to do. . . . I’m inundated because I’m the only black woman tenured in arts & sciences and the School of Divinity [at Harvard].” Beyond Harvard, Higginbotham has been elected to the Council of American Studies Association and to the nominating board for the Organization of American Historians and served as co-chair of the program committee of the 1996 Berkshire Conference on Women’s History. She believes that minority scholars need to be visible and occupy positions of leadership, even when the workload becomes heavy. This is a kind of culture tax levied on people of color in the professoriate.

A number of Ford fellows have learned to say no to service. When Claudia Tate (Post 86) was on the “mommy circuit,” as she calls it, she chose to do only a portion of what was requested. She argues that the administration supports people who are producing, and one cannot produce if tied up in meeting after meeting. Teresita Martinez-Vergne similarly has learned to say no to service in order to tend to the things that are most important to her personally. As she states: “For advancement the most important thing is publication. I also know what is most important to me personally: spending time with my daughter and having an impact in the community.”

Service obligations have not prevented Carlos Castillo-Chavez (Post 87) from proceeding with his research. At Cornell University he serves as chair of the Committee for Affirmative Action, on its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and on the Human Resources Development Committee for the Provost. He is one of the founders of the northeast chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), where he served as president from 1992 to 1995, and has also participated on several national committees for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Castillo-Chavez is the editor of a journal on applied mathematics and a member of the board of directors of the Society for Mathematical Biology. At present he is the recipient of a very prestigious award: a White House Presidential Faculty Fellowship, which provides a National Science Foundation grant of $100,000 per year for five years. In addition, Castillo-Chavez is extremely active in mentoring minority students, many of whom are Ford fellows. This summer he established the Cornell SACNAS Mathematical Sciences Summer Institute which provides research experiences to 30 Latino and Native American undergraduate students. This Cornell program is funded by the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the office of Cornell’s provost.

Dorceta E. Taylor (Diss 89) was mentored by Castillo-Chavez, whose guidance was invaluable to her. She was able to avoid many of the pitfalls into which new faculty members often plunge and laments that the previous generation of minority faculty did so much community service that they often failed to receive tenure. As minority faculty of the next generation, Taylor still finds that her service and mentoring load is substantial. As she puts it: “You have to work hard to stay off those committees.”

Maria Elena Zavala (Post 82) is another minority faculty member who has taken on extensive service obligations. Aside from her work coordinating the cellular-molecular group, she serves on six departmental committees, and the university-wide Affirmative Action Committee. She is also an adviser for Chicanos for Community Medicine and the Minority Achievers in Science Faculty Advisory Board, where she continues as an ad hoc adviser.

Zavala claims that she has turned down requests to serve when circumstances required it. She does appreciate the time others have taken to mentor her, and has been motivated to help her own students and incoming faculty in the same way. In her own words: “I feel really grateful for the Ford fellowship. I think the foundation has spent its money well on me. It’s helped me impact people of modest means who may not have had a break at the right time. . . . The Ford Foundation has helped me provide some of those people with opportunities.”

Most people don’t know what its like to look a whale in the eye or race with a dolphin in a wave.

John Carlos Garza (Pre 92) believes that minority graduate students must find support groups to make their graduate experience less isolating. Most universities have organizations that provide support, both academic and extracurricular. Those can be very important to help people who feel isolated and discouraged during their graduate studies. Garza also participates in many sports: cycling, running, racquetball, softball, hiking, and kayaking. Ford fellows have found effective systems for grounding themselves to withstand the stresses of academe and offer important support to each other.

To unwind from the stresses of graduate school, Jose Unpingco (Pre 92) goes surfing. “It’s a good way to put things into perspective. You can’t worry about anything while you’re out there; you have to focus. Most people don’t know what it’s like to look a whale in the eye or race with a dolphin in a wave. I also like skydiving.” Unpingco is concerned with the basic grounding needed by all graduate students, and minority graduate students in particular. He advises students to make sure there is something you can go back to and clear your mind [with]] when things go bad.

Robbin Nicole Chapman (Pre 94) believes that undergraduates as well as graduate students need a support system of friends, mentors, and family. She advises women to locate women’s centers on their college campuses and establish contact with women scientists. Chapman grounds herself outside computer science by writing poetry and short fiction. In free moments, she enjoys microtonal music and was previously on the board of the American Festival of Microtonal Music. She also loves exploring, and has traveled to Mexico, Costa Rica, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Germany, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Ecuador, and some of the Caribbean Islands.

Music still plays an important role in Willetta Greene-Johnson’s (Post 88) life. She does arrangements for small string groups, has done some work for television, and is the choir director at her church. Music and prayer are her grounding mechanisms.

David Eugene Wilkins (Diss 89 and Post 93) relied on spiritual beliefs and Native American ceremonies at times when he was ready to give up graduate school. Within the Indian spiritual tradition, particular ceremonies exist to strengthen and renew ones resolve. Wilkins believes that students must surround themselves with people who believe in them. Many Ford fellows are playing such a role for each other.

I wear a zillion hats. I inform people, and I can shape the way my [radio]] program informs them. I invite substantive dialogue on issues, and the work provides immediate gratification.

The overwhelming majority of Ford fellows (88 percent) are in academe. Since the Ford programs require that applicants aspire to a teaching career, such an outcome is not surprising. However, many fellows serving in nonacademic positions are still directly involved with education.

Bai Akridge (Post 82) currently works for IBM as Issue Manager for International Telecommunications. He does not, however, see himself far outside the traditional educational establishment: “The fact that I am not in academe simply defines my physical location. It does not define me in my orientation and what I do. I happen to be a practicing academician. . . . My whole career has been the search for balance between theory and practice. As a faculty member, I suffered from not having as much opportunity for practice. You can practice scholarship in any venue.” Akridge’s active role in establishing the Ford Fellows Fund demonstrates his commitment to helping minority students complete their graduate education (last section).

Patricia Andrea Davis (Pre 86) is also working in industry. She currently conducts in-house training for Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, and enjoys watching the progress of her trainees. Davis has always been interested in teaching, and in the future she hopes to move back to academe.

Julianne Malveaux (Post 85), as host of her own radio program, also is indirectly involved in education: she considers radio and television to be an extension of the classroom. Of herself, she says: “I always knew I wouldn’t be an ‘ivory tower’ academic. I considered the Ph.D. [an]] entrée to options I wanted to consider. I knew it would give me a level of credibility I didn’t have without it.” Malveaux does not need to limit herself as she would in an Economics 101 class at a state university. Her impact can be immediate, and the issues she chooses can be timely and diverse. “I wear a zillion hats. I inform people, and I can shape the way my program informs them. I invite substantive dialogue on issues, and the work provides immediate gratification.” Malveaux’s influence as an educator has surely been enhanced in her current position.

After receiving his Ph.D. in physics at Ohio State University, Steven Leslie Richardson (Post 85) went straight into industry as a senior researcher at Eastman Kodak, where he worked for two years. He also served as a program director for the Condensed Matter Theory program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 1989 he left both Kodak and NSF to join the Materials Science Research Center of Excellence at Howard University. At present, he is an associate director of the center as well as an associate professor in electrical engineering at Howard.

Richardson continues to serve on evaluation panels at NSF as well as the National Research Council (NRC). He gives six stars to academe: “I like academe because you can be an entrepreneur, an administrator, a teacher, and a researcher. You can travel, attend conferences, network, and it’s hard to imagine doing all those things in an industrial or governmental institution.” The Ford postdoctoral fellowship permitted Richardson to complete an important series of theoretical calculations of the electron-phonon matrix elements in silicon, and present the results in Stockholm at the 1986 International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors. He believes that this support led to his first academic appointment.

Richardson enjoys the freedom to work on problems of his own interest and values the interaction with students—solving problems, earning degrees, choosing careers, and making a contribution to society. His research has been cited by the NSF with a career advancement award, and he has been elected as a Sigma Xi national lecturer for 1996 through 1998. Richardson has served as a visiting professor at Emory University and the University of Lisbon, and is responsible for bringing more than $700,000 worth of external funding to Howard.

In evaluations, Richardson’s students have rated him outstanding. He claims that he could name 10 or 15 Ford fellows who have mentored him, and he feels the same responsibility in guiding his students. Last year he provided an undergraduate student and a high school student with opportunities to learn about basic research in his computer laboratory. As he states: “I have a responsibility to give back. I try to do that by both mentoring and guiding graduate students and by teaching. I think you have a definite ethical responsibility.”

The first conference I attended I stood in the Great Hall at the reception, leaning against a pillar, and seeing this crowd of extraordinary people of color, and I experienced an epiphany. I had never before known how alone I had felt. This was a profoundly important experience for me.

Seeing all those people of color for the first time is hard to put into words. I remember walking around the room, blown away, mouth open in amazement.

Program officials noticed a recurring theme in the first two sets of final reports submitted by postdoctoral fellows in the early 1980s. “We would like to meet each other” was listed time and again in answer to the question “How might we improve the program?” In response, the Ford Foundation established an annual Ford Fellows conference, which has brought fellows together since 1982.

The agenda for the conference is planned entirely by a group of about 12 past and current fellows. Keynote speakers, such as John Hope Franklin, Winona La Duke, Judge Leon Higginbotham, Samuel Betances, Cornel West, and Mary Frances Berry, have inspired this assembly. Each fall fellows meet to present new approaches to research, to establish new professional associations, to obtain advance exposure to book and journal publishers, and to experience the support of an ever-growing community of scholars and friends.

As co-chairs of the 1993 Ford Fellows Conference, Drs. Jualynne Dodson (Post 90) and Federico Subervi-Velez (Post 88) stated in their letter to conference invitees:

You will meet people who are intimately familiar with what it means to prioritize and succeed in their scholarly pursuits even in environments that have not always been supportive and understanding of their heritage. . . . As you will discover in your conversations with colleagues, the Ford fellows’ network can often respond better than others to the particular questions related to improving your research agenda, . . . identifying job possibilities, getting your work published, earning promotions and tenure, obtaining references for positions at your university and nonacademic jobs, or just learning how to balance the demands of your career on your personal life. . . . [attendees] will share ideas, tips, [and] hints on how you might improve the possibility of successful progress in your academic, professional, and/or personal growth. . . . Unlike most professional meetings, the Ford fellows conference is without individual or group competition.

The success of each yearly conference is the generous spirit that prevails. Conversations take place that cross cultures, disciplines, and generations. Connections form that grow into collaborations and multi-authored projects. Lynn Bolles (Post 86), Carolyn Marie Jones (Post 93), Teresita Martinez-Vergne (Post 92), and Darryl Babe Wilson (Pre 94) all report that meetings with publishers at the conferences have led to book contracts. New insights are shared and sagging spirits find new resilience, inspired by the thoughts of someone who has jumped over similar hurdles and emerged stronger.

I am a big promoter of the Ford conferences. It is the only community of scholars in which one need make no apology for one’s specialty and specialness. I can’t think of any other association where rank does not play a major role. I feel that I communicate with many people from many fields and maintain dialogue with the scientists.

You find very bright people who are very similar to you and they’re all in one place. You feel that there is hope after all. You are not alone. There are people with high standards, prodigious minds, and [they]] are just like you, and their past experiences are like yours.

Teresita Martinez-Vergne (Post 92) met Franklin Knight (Post 86) when he was a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin, where she was a graduate student around 1980. She invited him to have coffee and asked him to read her dissertation proposal, and then invited him to dinner. Thus began a mentoring relationship that Martinez-Vergne considers crucial to her academic success. Knight suggested that she join the Association of Caribbean Historians and introduced her to scholars there. He has advised her in all phases of her career. David Eugene Wilkins (Diss 89 and Post 93) also cites Knight as a helpful mentor. When asked about mentoring Ford fellows, Knight spoke not of fellows he had mentored but of fellows who had mentored him, specifically Portia Maultsby (Post 84) and Monica E. Schuler (Post 84). Much of the impetus for mentoring and networking originates at Ford fellows conferences, but, whatever the origin, the result is a resounding success.

Carlos Castillo-Chavez (Post 87) has been cited as a mentor by Dorceta E. Taylor (Diss 89) and Patricia Davis (Pre 86). Like Knight, Castillo-Chavez does not take much credit for the assistance he has given these young scholars, but the help he has provided is substantial. As Taylor recounts: “Knowing Carlos Castillo-Chavez helps. You can’t pay for that kind of experience, and it was so crucial to me. How to go on the interview, what to ask for, how to negotiate. I picked up a lot of that, which gave me an edge.”

Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Diss 93) recounts that Theresa Melendez (Post 81) was supportive in her early academic career. Another fellow, Chon Noriega (Pre 88), served as mentor for Gaspar de Alba’s dissertation. Lisa Fe Saunders (Post 91) mentored Russell Eugene Williams (Pre 91). Drawing the line between networking and formal mentoring may be difficult, but the interconnections among Ford fellows are clearly productive and ongoing.

A substantial number of fellows have convinced other students and academics to apply to the Ford programs, and many have received awards. Knight encouraged Martinez-Vergne, and Saunders recommended Williams. Other examples include David Wilkins, who motivated John Andrew Archuleta (Diss 93) to apply; Huey Perry (Post 86), who was convinced to apply by Edmond J. Keller (Post 81); and Estevan Flores (Post 86), who encouraged Gilbert Cadena (Post 88).

Although Kenyatta Dorey Graves (Pre 94) is only in his third year of graduate school, he is already on the board of directors of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation and serves on the executive council of the National Black Graduate Students Association. Graves is “in love with words” and looks forward to a teaching career. Before he completes his Ph.D. he also plans to publish a novel so that he can go on the job market as both a scholar and a creative writer. He hopes ultimately to teach at a historically black college or university.

Graves has benefited from his Ford fellowship both in terms of self-esteem and the attention that the award has drawn to him in his department. “I think the fellowship has made the department brass give me more attention. They are more ready to listen to my opinions.” Graves has found networking with individuals he met at a Ford conference particularly important and has concluded that African American males are indeed working toward graduate degrees in order to mentor black males and serve as role models. He is one of only two African American men in the English department at the University of Maryland, perhaps because “we’re told that we’re supposed to study things like engineering.”

Graves was initially inspired to attend graduate school when he took a course on twentieth-century African American writers taught by Marilyn Mobley (Post 89) at George Mason University. At the University of Maryland, he was mentored by other fellows: Carla Peterson (Post 85) and Gladys Marie Fry (Post 88), who was the second black woman to receive a Ph.D. in folklore in the United States.

Graves praises the academic atmosphere at Maryland, where, incidentally, eleven Ford fellows are on the faculty. A strong sense of community binds the graduate students together: “We’re very supportive of each other and share papers with each other before they’re turned in. I’ve never sensed any competitive spirit among us.” Graves also praises the faculty for having each individual’s interests at heart. When he experienced doubts about continuing with graduate work last year, Deborah McDowell (Post 85) told him to “never be afraid of the Word, because you have it.” Inspired by many other Ford fellows, Kenyatta Dorey Graves looks forward to carrying on that Word.

Ford fellows are often anxious to return benefits to their community when they succeed in the academic world. In addition to a heavy teaching, research, and service load, Maria Elena Zavala (Post 82) has tried to improve conditions for minority students coming into academe. Through SACNAS, she helped train elementary school teachers in Michigan from minority population schools to improve their hands-on science teaching. Utilizing the fast plant system, which uses the most inexpensive and often recycled equipment, teachers were encouraged to abandon memorization and plunge into experimentation. With Carlos Castillo-Chavez (Post 87), Zavala has also been involved in SACNAS, which has as one of its goals, the introduction of minority students into the academic pipeline through meetings that feature undergraduate research. Zavala maintains that children who go into science must be rigorously prepared in junior high: high school or college may be too late.

This sentiment is reflected in the activity of many Ford fellows. In the summer of 1994, Robbin Nicole Chapman (Pre 94) taught computer science in a program called EUREKA! The late Alice Miller, director of the Women’s Center at Brooklyn College, founded the program, which teaches accelerated math and science to girls.

Teresita Martinez-Vergne (Post 92) is involved with the Minnesota Hispanic Education Program. She mentors a fifteen-year-old girl in her community and has helped the program further by arranging for the use of facilities at Macalester College, where she teaches, to run a workshop on mentoring.

To achieve similar goals, Luis Enrique Martinez (Pre 92) visited local high schools and a camp for learning-disabled children when he was an undergraduate. He liked to present the whiz-bang type of science programs that children in the seven to 12 age group really enjoy, such as freezing a racquetball in liquid nitrogen and then exploding it on the floor. He also worked in the Trinity Minority Network, which helps students learn about why they should go to college, where to go, and how to enroll. The network also provides information about financial aid.

Maria Cristina Villalobos (Pre 94) tutors children at the kindergarten through eighth-grade level at La Escuela Rice, an elementary school in Houston, and both Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Post 87) and her husband, Judge Leon Higginbotham, have worked in after-school tutoring programs.

After his father died of cancer in 1988, Estevan T. Flores (Post 86) was inspired to begin a research program that would help mitigate the effects of cancer in the Latino population. This new project deals with screening for breast and cervical cancer in Latinas. Flores does social action research that aims to improve life in the community. He has been appointed to the state board of health by the governor of Colorado.

Eugene Garcia (Post 80) serves on many community and foundation boards. He was once elected to a four-year term on the school board when he became concerned about the quality of education in his district. “Academics should be involved,” says Garcia. “Our faculty are also citizens of the community. They can help with writing grants for early childhood centers.”

After he received support through the Ford postdoctoral fellowship program, Garcia became convinced that a postdoctoral research opportunity is critical for developing scholars, especially those who are taxed with heavy teaching loads immediately following degree completion. Of these young professors he writes: “Unless they connect with a mentor who is actively publishing and doing research, they will burn out. Their contribution in teaching and service may be excellent, but without a postdoc or the network that you develop from being in a postdoc, you can’t go forward.” Under Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Garcia established a postdoctoral program that would provide 25 or more postdoctoral fellowships with salary, benefits, and research funds, for which universities would compete. In the 1996 federal budget the program was zeroed out, but Garcia hopes it will be funded at some point in the future.

Nicolas Kanellos (Post 86) is currently serving on the College Board Task Force and has been appointed to the Literature Policy Panel of the National Endowment of the Arts. In the past, he was highly involved in grassroots organizing to effect change in politics and education. He worked for integration, the creation of bilingual education, the passage of bilingual education laws, and workers rights.

James Diego Vigil (Post 87) was an active participant in the Chicano movement of the 1960s, and continues to see political activism as a primary motivating factor in his research. Vigil is an urban anthropologist who has done extensive research on urban youth, especially gangs and Chicano-police relations in Los Angeles. Following Ford postdoctoral tenure, he completed Barrio Gangs: Street Life and Identity in Southern California. Vigils new book, Personas Mexicanas: Chicano High Schoolers in a Changing Los Angeles, stems from his Ford postdoctoral year and he is currently preparing From Indians to Chicanos: A Sociocultural History for a second edition. His academic production is tightly intertwined with his activism. Vigil is currently on the Hispanic Advisory Council to the Los Angeles Police Department and also serves in different capacities with agencies serving Mexican-American youth.

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Darryl Babe Wilson participated in the Indian Wars, where he and other Native Americans contested the original purchase of California from Native Peoples. He traveled extensively and learned a great deal about history, legislation, and world politics. In 1972 Wilson attended the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, and was later invited to Nancy, France, for the World Theater Festival. A German publisher who met him in Nancy arranged to publish a book of Wilson’s thoughts entitled Waves Upon the Ocean of Time.

Kanellos, Vigil, and Wilson are not the only fellows who are or have been heavily involved in changing the political status quo, but many have discovered that their minority voice has taken on resonance in academe.

Ford fellows devote a remarkable amount of time to mentoring students at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. Many involve themselves in programs that encourage students of color to complete high school. In addition, a number of fellows have long wished to assist other young scholars of color in a concerted way to complete their doctoral education. At the 1993 Annual Ford Fellows Conference, Bai Akridge (Post 82) proposed that the fellows establish a fund to enable the Ford Foundation to make more awards. Led by Akridge, the fellows established the Ford Fellows Fund, which has raised enough money to support an additional one-year dissertation fellowship for the 1995-1996 and the 1996-1997 academic years. Contributions to the fund last year and this year have included donations from corporations, and in particular, a generous gift from the Hitachi Corporation. Each year all past Ford fellows are asked to contribute to the fund to assist the Ford Foundation in its efforts to expand the pool of minority scholars.

The cover of this publication pictures a lovely handmade quilt. During the past 16 years, Ford fellows have pieced together a beautiful patchwork quilt of scholarship, research, mentoring, and service. They have carried out new and exciting scholarship and research and have advised and mentored a new generation of scholars at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Through community programs and outreach efforts, they have extended a hand to school-aged children and hope and direction to returning nontraditional scholars. At colleges and universities, they have shared their knowledge and experience with students and colleagues and have become administrators, able to change the very structure of higher education through curricula and recruitment. They have served as role models for all students, particularly those who had not seen many faces resembling their own at the front of the classroom. In their communities the fellows have worked for social justice. As writers, musicians, composers, artists, and filmmakers, they have contributed to the aesthetic richness of the United States and have provided a truer vision of this country’s intellectual and artistic breadth to an international audience. Finally, they have established a fund that helps provide fellowship support for more Ford fellows. In this sense the fellows have fully joined with the Ford Foundation in the desire to increase the diversity and quality of the faculty of the future.