After five years teaching in the Princeton mathematics department, Arlie Petters was paralyzed by the question many professors face when approaching their final year before tenure review: Should he leave the institution in which he had invested almost eight years of work for a guaranteed tenured position at another school? Or should he wait it out and hope the Princeton faculty committee would vote in favor of granting him tenure?
Most young faculty members choose the sure offer. And Petters did — but not without weighing many factors.
For black professors — an under-represented group in academia — race "adds another dimension" to the decision, according to Petters, a native of Belize who grew up in New York City.
"I always try to assess rigorously the racial climate of an environment before deciding to go there. In fact, no salary offer or high prestige can outweigh this issue in my mind," Petters — who spoke to The Daily Princetonian via e-mail — said earlier this year. "I need to be in an environment where I can flourish intellectually and not get psychologically worn down by a racial climate that chips away at me bit by bit."
And while Petters may have trusted that his work was tenure-worthy at Princeton, the lure of a fully endowed tenured chair at a progressive institution — one with a clear commitment to recruiting minority faculty — proved too great.
When he left in 1998, the mathematician was the only minority faculty member in his Princeton department, and at his new home — Duke — Petters would become the first-ever black math professor. But the emphasis placed by the Duke administration on drawing a broad class of highly touted, up-and-coming minority professors appealed to Petters more than the disadvantages of playing the role of a pioneer.
"Outside of research opportunities, Duke's community of African-American scholars and its commitment to diversity were major attractions," he said recently, pointing to Duke's aggressive efforts to attract first-rate black scholars. "Receiving an endowed chair showed how much they value me."
And with Duke taking Petters, Princeton's math department was left without a single black faculty member among its approximately 50 faculty — a dearth it still faces today.
Like many scholars, Petters believes this translates to a self-defeating cycle in which black professors will hesitate to join a predominantly white faculty — and black graduate and undergraduate students will shy away from pursuing fields without minority role models.
"Young black faculty are drawn to environments where there are successful tenured black scholars to mentor them. This filters through to undergraduate and graduate students," he said.
And in his view, race plays a role when universities decide whether to grant tenure. "I believe that the ethnicity of an applicant almost always factors in the minds of people deciding on whether to grant the applicant an important position," he said.
"Race is always a factor whether we admit it or not. And it will remain a thorn in our sides that festers," Petters noted, "unless we have enough courageous leaders to engage this issue substantively. It is then not surprising that most African-American scholars are drawn to institutions that are committed to having a racially diverse community of world-class scholars."
In Petters' eyes, Duke had made such a commitment — and Princeton had not.
In the wake of his departure, minority recruitment has emerged as an issue the Princeton math department is gradually addressing through an affirmative-action committee that has begun drafting a list of potential black professors, according to department chair Charles Fefferman.
Fefferman pointed to the department's world-famous status as an obstacle for both recruiting minority professors and for promoting assistant professors onto a tenure-track — which he estimates has happened at most four times in the past 20 years.
"If you look at the number of minority senior professors in mathematics, which is the level which we are looking for, it's just small, and we are all trying to pick from it," he said. "And when we look to fill a position, we don't just ask, 'Well, are our assistant professors good?' We ask instead, 'Who is the very best person in the world in that field?' "
At age nine, future astrophysics professor Neil de Grasse Tyson was so enchanted with the grace of the night sky that he decided to make astrophysics his life's work.
During the early years of his education, the subtleties of race often passed by unnoticed in the classroom, and he thought it played no part in his life as a scientist.
But, as a graduate student, Tyson discovered that even in the egalitarian lab, sometimes he could not avoid latent "insensitivity" to race. And he realized he had unknowingly followed his heart through the "path of most resistance."
This path led to Princeton.
Between shelves overflowing with three-inch thick physics and math textbooks, a bubble-gum pink Hawaiian shirt hangs off a makeshift coat rack just above where a maroon and gold 1978 18-speed Austro-Daimler bicycle usually rests.
Manila folders — plump with loads of research documents likely to be more than one-year-old — sit neatly stacked on one of two desks in the room. The other table supports a powerful Silicon Graphics computer system used for analyzing star data and a stealthy Powerbook laptop, which, aside from handling massive amounts of incoming e-mail, sounds a foghorn for each passing hour.
Miscellaneous strewn magazines and several pairs of sneakers cramp the floor. And a pair of padded bike shorts is suspended in the mix.
The mess of science and athletic gear found in Peyton 105 may not fit the image expected of a research-based astrophysicist within the Ivory Tower.
But neither does its occupant.
With an immaculate academic pedigree, Tyson towers at a brawny six-feet, two-inches and exudes the soft kindness one might expect from a museum science director. During a Wednesday meeting in November, he quickly suggested taking an interview outdoors to pick up his bicycle in the repair shop downtown. Sporting a knitted sweater with a subtle crimson 'H' across the front, a dark blazer, black jeans and '80s-style aviator sunglasses, the professor who was once asked to pose for a "Studmuffins of Science" calendar — and was named the best-looking astrophysicist by People magazine — began outlining what he sees as a disturbing trend in Princeton's handling of black faculty.
As the founder and director of the astrophysics department at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, Tyson spends half his time teaching astronomy to millions of one-day pupils who visit the museum per year. He divides the rest of his energies between his research on the structure of the Milky Way and the Princeton students enrolled in his astronomy course, AST 203: The Universe.
As the count stands today, according to Associate Provost Joann Mitchell, Tyson is one of three black professors employed in Princeton's engineering and science departments. Such a low number stems from several causes, including the competition among top schools for a relatively small number of black academics.
It is a widely observed phenomenon that blacks are less likely than their white counterparts to enter academia — and even less so in the sciences, Tyson notes, providing his class at Harvard as evidence. Of the 131 black students, only two pursued non-professional graduate degrees — and that other classmate entered a history program.
Princeton is not the only school to feel the pinch of few minority science professors. At both Harvard and Yale the percentages of those professors have either decreased or stagnated below 8 percent in recent years, according to the universities' affirmative-action reports. Both schools have mobilized to recruit minorities to the natural sciences, with Harvard president Neil Rudenstine '56 making a push for race-based affirmative action as he approaches retirement.
But before Princeton can improve, the University needs to address the question of why there are so few minorities in the sciences.
Duke managed to attract Petters, but not without a bit of luck. According to professor William Pardon, acting chair of the Duke mathematics department, only two other candidates of the 500 who applied for the position were black. He linked the problem to the small number — 1.6 percent in 1996 — of doctorates in mathematics received by black scholars.
For the most part, Tyson does not buy the small-pool excuse. But he thinks the University could focus more on the causes of the problem — such as the minority-deficient pipelines to graduate work — and use its resources to support students on high school and undergraduate levels.
Smiling as he savors his sweet cream ice cream Blend-in with strawberries and malt from Thomas Sweet, Tyson uses the area of physics to illustrate that though the percentage of black scientists is small, there are enough high-caliber professors from which the University could recruit.
"It is not so far-fetched for Princeton to say that of the 15 black astrophysicists in the world, none of them are Princeton-worthy," he says in his thoughtfully paced manner, carefully emphasizing the low number. "But in other fields like physics, even if those hundred are a small percentage, there is bound to be at least one."
Tyson worries instead that other Ivy League schools like Princeton focus too much on what he calls "black superstar" faculty members. The duel between Princeton and Harvard for renowned African-American studies scholar Cornel West GS '80 serves as a perfect example for Tyson, who compared West to Jackie Robinson, the first black major-league baseball player. Robinson, who was named MVP during his first season, was too talented to be overshadowed by his skin color, the astrophysicist explains.
"That means there are a lot of black players that were not Jackie Robinson, but who were better than your average player, who were overlooked. If the first time you opened your eyes is when someone like Jackie Robinson steps to bat, in a way it's just because you had to face it, you couldn't ignore it," he says.
"I think 10 of the first 12 black players were admitted to the hall of hame," Tyson says. "That is an extraordinary event — most ball players do not go to the hall of fame. So either all blacks are extraordinary athletes or they follow the normal distribution, but the only way they are seen is if they are extraordinary."
So the theory applies to higher education. Though Princeton has been able to boast the presence of two highly sought-after black scholars — West and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison — Tyson is more concerned that the hunt for "superstars" is leaving everyone else behind.
"Most faculty members do not win the Nobel Prize," he notes. "So I ask, 'Where are the others?' Is Princeton blind in the same way the major league was? Where is the talent commensurate with the average faculty member? Or do you only open your eyes when someone is visibly above the rest?"
Tyson's self-identity is closely tied to his vocation as an astrophysicist. But when he discusses the racism he has encountered throughout his life, it is as if Tyson is describing two separate worlds — a personal world in which race plays a role, and an academic world in which it does not.
That is, until others interfere.
His race, Tyson explains, is not something that lurks above him —unavoidable — in his professional life. Being an astrophysicist is unique enough, and the color of his skin, he says, plays no role in his science. Leaning back in his chair, wearing a thick red wool sweater and synthetic cargo pants, he ignores the periodic rings emanating from his cell phone and the sounds from his e-mail program. And, as with many points he makes, Tyson finds the perfect articulation of this particular sentiment in a New Yorker cartoon.
The drawing — an original that Tyson purchased from the artist and has hanging in his office in New York — depicts the thoughts of four scientists in a laboratory, one of whom is black. Tyson has a copy on his computer and launches into an impromptu reading.
"Can you see this? This guy is thinking, 'I wonder what he thinks about O.J.' " Tyson says, reading the first white scientist's thoughts about his black colleague. The next scientist wonders about the colleague's views on Louis Farrakhan and the third about his take on affirmative action.
At last we see the black scientist's thoughts are a jumble of scientific equations and variables. The frame of Tyson's upper chest thrusts gently as he chuckles and shakes his head, re-reading the cartoon for what must be his 100th time.
"This characterizes it perfectly," he says. "I think more about the universe than about Farrakhan . . . I have no more special insight to him than anyone else does. You ask me do I carry [my race] with me in my head. No, I don't, but it comes up when people make a point of it, both black and white."
Receiving on average five requests per week to give lectures across the country, he automatically ignores those prompted by his skin color. "I speak an average of two or three times per month, but in that effort, I don't give any talks in February," he says, adding — for clarification — that February is Black History Month.
"Being black has nothing to do with my being a scientist. That transcends race," he says matter-of-factly, "And my expertise is neither seasonal nor race-based."
Only during graduate school — when Tyson shifted landscapes from the East Coast to the University of Texas at Austin — did race get mixed in with science.
There were the incidents with campus policemen — most notably when they stopped Tyson and a friend carrying boxes of graduate-level textbooks from the trunk of his car to his new office space. Entering the building after hours with books looked too suspicious.
And there was the time when he was leading his students to the UT observatory and a member of the "campus scouts" — the good Samaritans who acted on behalf of campus police — ordered him to wait to be questioned by UT authorities.
"That was at four o'clock in the afternoon, in front of 18 of my students" he recalls. "You can try to explain it, and there is only one explanation."
But those were times when to campus police he was Neil Tyson, the person — not Neil Tyson the scientist. The latent prejudice built into the "Texas state of mind" crept into the lab through the students and faculty. As a black academic on a campus with a black student population of 2.5 percent — made up mostly of recruited athletes — Tyson considered himself an "anomaly."
"I am not crying racism, I am crying insensitivity," he says.
And the insensitivity came in small regular doses indiscernible to most UT students with whom he worked.
The first encounter was with an astrophysics professor whose opening words to Tyson were not a welcome to the department, but a collegial call for him to "join the department's basketball team."
Then there was the time when, running late to open the laboratory for his new students, Tyson rushed down the stairs, hurrying into the waiting area in a sweat. Assuming the astrophysicist was a jock, one white student turned to Tyson to assure him, "Oh, you are not late. He has not shown up yet to unlock the door."
"These are the built-up biases that people have. It did not occur to this student that I was the professor," Tyson says.
For Nicole Shelton, strained relationships between blacks and whites are part of her everyday routine. As a first-year assistant professor in the University's psychology department, Shelton seeks out racial tension — she studies race stigmatization and performs a variety of experiments to examine the role of race in social interactions.
And she said she finds it "interesting" to be the subject of the questions she normally asks of others.
A slender woman with a distinct southern twang to her voice, Shelton is — like Petters and Tyson — the lone minority in her department.
But she said that this is less important than the overall camaraderie in her department. Fresh from two years as a post-doc at the University of Michigan — where almost 10 percent of the 150 members of the psychology department are black — Shelton said she became accustomed to not seeing other black faces within one week of arriving at Princeton.
"When you first come here, race could be really salient, but you get used to it — it's like if you dye your hair, that's a very salient thing, but after a while you get used to it," she said, ending her sentences on an upbeat. "When I first came, I was aware that I was the only black person here. That lasted about two to three days, but that's just me."
While departmental demographics were a factor in her job search, Shelton said they were less important than finding the right working environment.
And on one level, Princeton is not unlike other places in which Shelton has spent her life. Growing up and attending school in a predominantly white neighborhood where she was one of only a few black students, Shelton said race was never an issue until she attended college.
"My first reaction was, 'What do you mean there is a Black Student Organization?' " she said emphatically, explaining that the first time she began to associate with a mostly black group of friends was as an undergraduate at William and Mary. "Race started to become an issue and central component of my identity — so, even if there are not a lot of other black students, you get used to it and move on by the time you are a senior."
But there was only one black professor — an adjunct — in William and Mary's psychology department. So Shelton did not study with any black professors — a decision she now regrets. In her case, Shelton said she believes a mentor could have helped her decide which graduate schools would have provided the most positive racial atmosphere and best program for her. Though the white professors tried, they did not consider those issues in a way that could have helped her. And, like Petters, she said she believes that minority faculty members in the sciences draw more black students to major in them.
"Part of everyone wants to be a lawyer or a doctor, but to say you are going to graduate school requires more determination. And when you start talking about physics and chemistry, not having someone available for black students — that does pose a barrier," she said. "I think that if I liked chemistry and didn't have a role model there, I would have said, 'No way.' "
Shelton sees similarities between Princeton today and William and Mary during her days as an undergraduate — particularly in the few opportunities for minority mentorship.
Shelton moved to the University this past summer, but until attending an informal luncheon put together by several black female professors in mid-November, she had "not met one other ethnic minority professor on campus."
While her friends and colleagues at other schools joined minority faculty groups on their campuses in September, Shelton said she has plunged into her work without making much of an effort to meet other Princeton professors. And in the realm of her job, she, like Tyson, finds few reminders of her race, or that she is the only black psychology professor at the University.
"On a daily basis, no, it doesn't bother me, and that would be the case no matter where I was. But then, when I stop and think about it globally and on a personal level, I do wish I had more contact with minority professors," she said.
"For me, race is important — it's very closely tied to my identity — however, it takes a lot to trigger that on a daily level," she added. "Like walking down the hall, I don't think, 'Oh, I am the only black psychologist here.' "
When she starts thinking about the future and getting tenure, however, Shelton said she recognizes these factors may come into play.
They did for Arlie Petters.
But it will be five years before Shelton has to confront these issues. By then she will be 34. And other universities may be knocking on the door.
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