Abstract
Dear EES Readership,
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Coincidentally, I interviewed with Dr. Lilia Abron for AEESP's YouTube Channel. She is the first African American to receive a doctorate in chemical engineering in the United States, and she is the current vice president of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. In the interview, she expressed her shock when she sees a flyer advertising graduate positions in sanitary engineering; growing up in the Deep South, that is what she called the men who picked up garbage from her house. Little did she know that she could get paid to go to school to study such a thing. She earned her M.S. degree in sanitary engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1968, the same year as the sanitation workers' strike. After completing her doctorate, she served as an assistant professor of civil engineering at Tennessee State University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) located just 200 miles from Memphis.
I reviewed our newsletters from 1968 to see whether any of these issues of inequality were ever acknowledged by our profession. Although I did not see any reference to the topic, Dr. Gordon E. Mclellon wrote in the March 1968 newsletter of the American Association of Professors in Sanitary Engineering (AAPSE), “If the profession is to expand, I feel that increased support will be required, not only at the graduate level but at the undergraduate level also. Counseling and publicity in the high schools, summer employment and other inducements must be added to make the young aware of the field and to give them an avenue, starting from the freshman level, of approaching it.” He was commenting on a previously published newsletter article, “Graduate Curricula in Water Quality Engineering and Management.”
As AAPSE grew and became the AEESP, our interests expanded to areas beyond sanitary engineering, and to learners more diverse than those in our classrooms in 1968 and even to some beyond our current academic curtains. Getting the education part right is now seen as “The ultimate challenge for environmental engineering,” according to the last chapter of the recently released National Academy of Science Engineering and Mathematics (NASEM) consensus study report, “Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century Addressing Grand Challenges (2018).” The NASEM report urges us to integrate social and behavioral dimensions of environmental challenges within real-world contexts into undergraduate curriculum. It also emphasizes that “to create solutions that work for society, environmental engineers will need to cultivate diversity and engage collaboratively with stakeholders and other disciplines.” Our field is reminded that done properly and with meaningful institutional commitment to transformation, diversity leads to innovation and that solving real-world problems will help us to attract a more diverse pool of students into our profession.
WE&T's January 2019 front page alludes to this with the title “Strength in Numbers—Workforce diversity and sustainability.” Articles within that publication on the state of the water industry highlight the fact that in many instances our engineered infrastructure (e.g., water and wastewater treatment plants) is located within communities already grappling with high unemployment and that have higher percentages of underrepresented minority populations. Investing in local human capital to fill one of the 3 million water sector jobs by 2030 not only secures economic prosperity for the utility's community, but also could make the sector's workforce more representative of the communities it serves. According to “Renewing the water sector workforce: Improving water infrastructure and creating a pipeline to opportunity,” a 2018 Brookings Institution publication, that workforce is now 85% male and approximately two-third white. In addition to Mclellon's recommendations from 1968, which still hold, WE&T authors highlight a range of existing programs that range from integrating water education from early childhood to providing opportunities to persons from the criminal justice system.
The launch of the Water Environment Federation (WEF) Introducing Future Leaders to Opportunities in Water (InFLOW) program at WEFTEC 2018 was highlighted in the October 2018 AEESP newsletter. InFLOW participant Sherika Jacobs, a senior at the University of South Florida and the University of the Virgin Islands rated a panel discussion with mainly professionals of color as the most memorable aspect of the experience. She recalled, “One professional mentioned the inequality she experienced having her first job where one of her colleagues was given all of the relevant tasks for the job while she was given insignificant tasks. Nonetheless, she persevered and is now the commissioner of the city of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management. After hearing the trials and tribulations that these people encountered, it motivated me even more to continue working hard to achieve my goals and make a positive difference in the world.” If we are to get this education thing right today, we have to listen to testimonies such as those of Commissioner Powell, currently leading initiatives such as those providing opportunities in the water sector to persons from the criminal justice system, and do better. This is already happening in our field and I was reminded of that on Martin Luther King Day this year when WEF Board of Trustee member Ifetayo Venner sent me a picture of Sherika Jacobs sitting at her new desk at ARCADIS. A week later, Howard University (HU) InFLOW students and AEESP member assistant professor Jeseth Delgado Vela were holding the first HU Water Environment Association meeting with some of the panelists who presented at WEF such as David Gadis, CEO of DC Water. Our AEESP Membership and Demographics Committee is exploring a program such as InFLOW to bring graduate students underrepresented in our field to AEESP conferences with the intention of getting jobs in academia.
Given the low numbers of current AEESP faculty members who are underrepresented minorities, we might have to reach beyond our disciplines to speak to the students we wish to recruit into academia with a program such as InFLOW. We could also look to faculty who are working with communities of color to solve environmental challenges. Communities such as Flint, Michigan, whose potable water quality challenges provide one of the most highly publicized real-world contexts of our time. With a current population not much greater than the sum of the student bodies of Virginia Tech and the University of Michigan, Flint's population is 57% African American and 42% live below the poverty line. Detroit, Newark, New York, Pittsburgh, and Tampa are examples of other cities that are dealing in some way with lead levels in potable water. The most vulnerable are the poor and the underrepresented minorities, many of whom live with the oldest piping systems in their homes and can least afford mitigation costs. If we looked for our members who work or have worked with various community members in Flint, we would find articles discussing their work in publications such as The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Mother Jones. Unfortunately, the media focus has shifted from the water situation in Flint to personal relationships gone bad. Guyanese poet Martin Carter comes to mind when considering the impact of Flint on the relationships of AEESP members. “… like a jig…shakes the loom;…like a web…is spun the pattern…all are involved!…all are consumed!” If we are to get this education thing right today, we have to cultivate an academic culture that does better.
The end of Dr. Celina Dozier's e-mail to her students on Martin Luther King Day is something to contemplate regularly, “Though, you may not be out on the front lines protesting any of the many injustices that are still present today, ask yourself this: As an aspiring engineer, how will I be of service to the communities that I serve and ensure that my work is equitable to all people?” I hope you consider AEESP one of your valued communities. I look forward to seeing you in Arizona at AEESP 2019.
Maya A. Trotz, President AEESP