African American Scholar: We're Not as Rare as You May Think, President Daniels

Deanna McMillan, For the Journal & Courier
10:54 a.m. ET Nov. 27, 2019
Purdue University (Photo: J&C file photo)

The J&C's Nov. 23 article referencing Purdue President Mitch Daniels feeling "misunderstood" prompted me to respond to the perceived scarcity of African American faculty (and I will add administrators) on campus.

The presence of people of color in the academy may be numerically low and at the same time extremely significant. I hold three earned engineering degrees from predominantly white institutions. I have never had a professor of African descent. I can only imagine how much that experience would have made a difference in my studies.

Last I checked, I am the second of three African Americans in the country with a doctorate in the construction sub-discipline of civil engineering, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. While that may occur as rare from a statistics standpoint, it's important to note that the first African American to achieve this distinction is also on Purdue's campus. That would make us a national majority that was neither recognized nor celebrated. One of many misses of the accomplishments and achievements of the academicians of color at Purdue.

In my short time as director of construction engineering internships at Purdue I participated in the AALANA group — the African American, Native American, Latino American Women of Color in the STEM disciplines.  Under the direction of a white woman, we exchanged stories, experiences, trauma and on occasion triumphs in our daily interactions in stark comparison to those of our white male colleagues — some of whom were our spouses.

In that same time frame, as many of us realized a dream deferred, we scattered to alternate institutions in the hopes of recouping the loss on our investment in our current situations. (The empirical gestation period for make vs. break careers for African Americans at Purdue is approximately three years.)

There are a number of reasons each of us left that I can't speak to, but my primary frustration as someone who holds three engineering degrees was being told that only tenure track faculty members could do research. As an accomplished professional, noting in my area of research and expertise that I had no opportunity to make a significant impact on the academy is unfortunate.

Before leaving Purdue, I pointed to several of my colleagues when I asked former Purdue Provost Tim Sands — how many people have Purdue sent to the moon and in contrast how many people of color have left Purdue with distinction?

No one knows the answer and it's widely presumed that the former exceeds the latter. Hence the reference "rare creature."

President Daniels, if — and that's a big if — you want to see those numbers change and those results altered for the good of the academy, then Purdue’s administration would do well to engage in conversation with those rare, gifted, phenomenal human beings who have forged their way through a system that was not designed with us a mind and celebrate our achievement at a level that equals those who are in the current majority. The National Society of Black Engineers is proof of that.

I have offered and am available to discuss my personal experience at Purdue or thoughts on the overall dilemma of people of color in the academy, at any time. I am not hard to find — three miles west of campus. Just down the road.

McMillan lives in West Lafayette.