Everyone talks about the pipeline, but it generally refers to a pipeline to get minority students into Ph.D. programs. Not many organizations do follow-up tracking. Few, if any, programs are specifically designed to recruit minorities for postdoctorals or for faculty positions," said Joel Oppenheim, associate dean at New York University's Sackler Institute of Medicine and member of the Alliance postdoctoral committee.

"Why are postdoctoral appointments important? Postdoctoral researchers are much of the fuel that runs the highly successful US scientific machine," said James Wyche, executive director of the Leadership Alliance. "They play an important role in the smooth and productive operation of the majority of scientific research laboratories in academia and government. Their numbers in the behavioral and social sciences have been on the rise since the academic hiring slowdown that resulted from the economic recession of 1990."

A postdoctoral appointment is the final step on the path to becoming an independent investigator in the scientific establishment of this country. In the behavioral and social sciences, additional training, the chance to work with a specific scholar, the opportunity to publish and timely employment are important reasons that most postdoctoral appointees gave National Science Foundation (NSF) researchers for seeking these positions.

Postdoctoral fellows have a long and distinguished history in this country. In 1876, Johns Hopkins University President Daniel Gilman, in an effort to help the then new research university compete with its powerhouse counterparts in Europe, created the first postdoctoral appointments by offering four men with doctoral degrees (all earned at European universities) $500 fellowships. Few academic expenditures have proven so successful.

Today, the postdoctoral market, spurred by the economic recession and subsequent hiring slowdown in academia and industry, is steadily expanding. Although there is no exact figure, the NSF estimates that there are approximately 52,000 postdoctoral fellows in this country.

In 1999, the year of the NSF's most recent survey of graduate students and postdoctoral appointments, the nation's universities granted 29,922 doctorates to US citizens and permanent residents. Of these, about 3,194 were earned by scholars from traditionally underrepresented groups. According to the NSF, there were approximately 39,000 postdoctoral appointments in 1997; however, survey data found only 1,242 minority postdoctorals-about 3 percent of the total number of appointments.

The NSF's figures for 1999 from its "Survey of Earned Doctorates" show that between 32 and 45 percent of minority students had definite plans for postdoctoral study-that is approximately 1,123 minority postdoctorals. These planned postdoctorals represent not only a decrease of approximately 100 minority postdoctorals, but also an approximate 1 percent decrease for underrepresented minorities in the growing total number of appointments.

Breaking postdoctorals down by category does little to improve minority statistics. In 1997, biological and life sciences (including all health fields) represented 69 percent of all postdoctoral appointments and other non-faculty doctoral research staff in doctorate-granting institutions; 3 percent of these appointments went to minorities. The remaining science categories, physical/earth sciences and engineering/computer sciences, make up 20 percent and 9 percent (respectively) of the postdoctorals, but only 3 and 2 percent (respectively) of these appointments went to minorities. In the social and behavioral sciences, the ratio is better, with 21 percent of the appointments going to minorities. However, there were only 916 social science and psychology postdoctorates; these represent approximately 2 percent of the total number of appointments. "Postdoctoral appointments represent high-level research employment in all fields, and most postdoctorals agree that these appointments provide invaluable training beyond graduate school, even if they do feel that often they are being taken advantage of and used as a source of cheap labor. Most senior investigators agree that postdoctorals' expertise and commitment are crucial to the research enterprise, but a prevailing view for far too many is that diversity is not a high priority in training America's future researchers," said Dr. Wyche.

"Many say the problem of the minuscule number of minority postdoctoral appointments, like the minuscule number of minority Ph.D.s, lies at the beginning of the pipeline. They also say we need to focus attention on ways of getting more students who are better prepared out of primary and secondary school and putting them into the pipeline. Of course, this is true, but how can we afford to narrow our focus? Postdoctoral appointments are a major proving ground where tomorrow's leading researchers will develop the independence and professionalism that will make them successful investigators.

"The Leadership Alliance believes that it is the responsibility of the empowered to empower others. Our mission is to improve the participation of traditionally underrepresented students in graduate education programs. It is therefore our goal to encourage our students through every stage of the Ph.D. process, including the postdoctoral and employment stages. To that end, our consortium of 29 leading research and teaching colleges and universities has initiated its own postdoctoral committee. The Harold Amos Postdoctoral Committee is named after Professor Emeritus Harold Amos, former chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Harvard Medical School. It is charged with establishing a student database, expanding networks among our members and strengthening contacts outside of our consortium.

"We salute organizations like the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Merck & Co., which are working to establish minority postdoctoral fellowships. We recognize the historic and continuing efforts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF in increasing the participation of traditionally underrepresented students.

We look back to one of our member institutions, Johns Hopkins University, which started a monumentally successful American revolution with four young scientists with European degrees, as a model. We call on academia, the public and private sectors to seek and expand their efforts to support minority doctoral fellows and to maintain this nation's leadership in the research enterprise," concluded Dr. Wyche.