Times of India: ...as many as 12% [of] scientists and 38% [of] doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.
If that's not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians.
Nevertheless, having a professor of Indian or Chinese extraction in our department is not considered as adding to our "diversity" -- presumably because it doesn't help Oregon students prepare for the multicultural "workforce of the 21st century" :-/
Note: A commenter suggests the numbers are a bit high; perhaps the real percentages are about half what the Times of India estimates?
As an indian I would take this with a pinch of salt. The Times of India is not known to actually research articles before writing them.
ReplyDeleteMost likely, its a compendium of hear say.
Hmmm... you are right, the numbers sound a bit high.
ReplyDeleteBut there do seem to be a lot of Indians (and Chinese) in any science or technology activity I've observed!
While there are explicit financial incentives from the administration for departments at U Oregon to hire from certain ethnic groups, that generally does *not* extend to Asians (south or east) in the sciences! It's true that those groups are already over-represented on the faculty relative to their US population fraction, but not relative to their global or even US technology workforce fraction.
It's an interesting point you bring up. Personally, I never really understood the point of affirmative action till I saw it in action. My ad visor is a young woman (I'm a CS PhD candidate). Now I've seen plenty of undergrad girls approach her and become UG research assistants because she may be more approachable to them. At least less intimidating.
ReplyDeleteBy that logic it already works for Indians and Chinese. Students from their alma mater's contact them big time during admission process anyway. So if you were to encourage new types of minority students to be a part of U Oregon, your best best bet would be to use affirmative action to hire women/african americans/hispanics instead of going for some kind of proportional representation for Indians/Chinese. The benefits of doing that may be very marginal at best at least purely from the impact it has on attracting students from that ethnic group.
Good thing people never have to work for bosses of a different race or sex. That would be intimidating.
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteI was right after all.
Surprisingly the TOI clarifies... (or may I'm giving them too much crdit)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indians_in_NASA_Govt_falls_for_net_hoax/articleshow/2856295.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indians_in_NASA_Govt_falls_for_net_hoax/articleshow/2856295.cms
ReplyDeleteWoops...got the link wrong.