New Program Brings Together Five Historically Black
Colleges
Five historically black colleges from around the nation are
joining with Western Michigan University's College of Aviation to
form an Aviation Education Consortium that will work to diversify
the aviation industry work force and expand opportunities for
minority students and women.
Delaware State University, Florida Memorial College, Hampton
University, Tennessee State University, Texas Southern University
and WMU are the charter collegiate members of the organization that
was announced March 31 in Nashville on the campus of Tennessee
State. Other consortium members are the Organization of Black
Airline Pilots Inc. of Silver Springs (MD) and Tuskegee Airmen Inc.
of Arlington (VA), which will both serve the consortium in an
advisory capacity.
WMU's Dr. Eileen Evans, associate vice president for research,
and Tony Dennis, the College of Aviation's director of students
services, traveled to Tennessee State University in Nashville to
attend the signing ceremony.
The aim of the new organization is
to use the resources and expertise of all consortium members to
identify and support minority individuals who have an interest in
pursuing an aviation career and establish a strategy and process
for taking such individuals seamlessly "from ninth grade to the
airline industry door." To accomplish their goals, the consortium
will use a variety of tools, including faculty and student
mentoring, exchange programs between consortium members,
establishment of aviation student fellowships and coordination
among members' academic program resources and delivery systems.
"This is a demonstration of our commitment to achieving real
diversity in the aviation industry," says Capt. Rick Maloney, dean
of the College of Aviation. "We're excited about expanding our
relationships with the colleges and with OBAP and the Tuskegee
Airmen. Tony Dennis has spent more than two years working on this
project, and this is really a culmination of his efforts."
"We're planning on working cooperatively to develop the
knowledge base, systems, facilities and funding needed to identify,
recruit, train and support promising students," says Dennis. "We're
aiming to build an aviation work force that more accurately
reflects the industry's work force development needs. Our goal is
to increase the access of minorities and women to both engineering
and nonengineering careers in civilian aviation."
Dennis says consortium members will
work to improve minority and female representation among
aeronautical and electrical engineers, pilots and navigators,
aviation maintenance technicians, aviation electronics and computer
science engineers, air traffic controllers, flight instructors and
airline management personnel.
In 2001, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, only
4.9 percent of commercial aviation pilots were women and only 1.7
percent of aircraft mechanic jobs were held by females. The most
recent data available on the ethnic diversity of the industry's
work force was compiled in 1990. At that time, less than 2 percent
of commercial pilots were African American and less than 3 percent
were of Hispanic origin.
According to Dennis, a number of work force development issues
are currently in play for the airline industry, including: an aging
generation of pilots from the baby boom generation; a decrease in
the last decade in the number of new pilots being trained by the
U.S. military, which is a traditional feeder for civilian aviation
jobs; historic lack of representation by women and minorities in
all aviation-related careers; expensive aviation training programs;
and a fragmented aviation education system that lacks objective
quality measures for both pilot selection and aviation
curricula.
"We'll be looking at ways to address the problems, take
advantage of the opportunities, and design some systems that will
lead to long-term success in placing women and minority students in
highly skilled jobs," says Dennis. "We'll start by building
awareness about the possibilities and then be ready with a system
in place that will support students all the way through the
educational process."