Government
NSF's Slaughter aims at minority education Appointee as NSF director relishes opportunity to serve as role model and influence education for minorities in science and engineering In a few days, electronic engineer John B. Slaughter is expected to be confirmed by the Senate as the sixth director of the National Science Foundation (C&EN, July 14, page 7). The 46-year-old Slaughter is seen as a shoo-in for the job because he comes almost supremely recommended and the NSF directorship is probably the least controversial of any high-level Presidential appointment. All signs indicate that Slaughter could be just the right person to head the foundation at a time of growing debate around the economic and social impact of science and engineering. NSF is not only at the center of this debate; it also is expected to provide for the White House the major models for improving the federal role in that particular knowledge system. After only a year as academic vice president and provost at Washington State University in Pullman, Slaughter is reluctantly but excitedly pulling up stakes. And it's clear that his colleagues hate to see him go. Looking for a new provost is never a simple chore in any university, especially when the incumbent has established effective working relationships with the administration and faculty. Slaughter has achieved that and there is no question that his leaving poses a grating inconvenience to the university. But although the National Science Board's selection committee had to cajole him to return to NSF (he was head of a directorate up to July 1979), coming back is quite in tune with his career agenda. Slaughter isn't one of those scientists who inadvertently fell into management in obedience to a subtheorem to the Peter Principle. By the age of 30 he knew his enjoyment lay in motivating others and promoting their potential. At the time he was running a Navy computer labo-
school—never veering from his then audacious goal of wanting to be an electronic engineer. But throughout that time, he recalls, he received no career counseling. His young black friends scoffed at his ambitions; his teachers ignored his goals, assigning him to a vocational program. The main encouragement came from his parents. "They were the only people who took me seriously," he says. When he wrote a junior high school term paper on his career goals, his father gathered up some lumber and used furniture and built him a radio repair shop. Up he went, through to the Ph.D. and a career in computer science and information systems—fields that are beginning to be better known as "the sciences of the artificial world" involving the study not of matter and Slaughter: reluctant but excited energy but of information phenomena wholly created by man. There's releratory in San Diego and by then had vance to that in Slaughter's new role, under his belt the experience of what too. For its content implies the alloit takes to become a successful black cation of knowledge about matter and scientist or engineer. At the time he energy—a high-falutin description of was a rarity, and regrets to say today science policy. that he still is. He's out to improve And he thinks a fair shake for mithings. There's a lot of black, female, norities will help bring forth the kind Chicano, and native American crea- of creativity needed to solve the tivity out there and he wants to do a mounting problems posed by the lot to tap it. man-made world of science and Slaughter is a man with a mission. technology. "Of course, there's no It is minority education, a rather such thing as black mathematics or minor policy issue at NSF in terms of black chemistry," he says. "Science is its demand on the budget. This science. But I'm convinced that since doesn't mean he intends to raise good science is the product of the howls in the cause of minorities. He creative process, minorities will add sees things more broadly than that. It their own brand of creativity to pure means he plans to continue working and applied science just as they have against the forces that prevent any to sports and arts." He says one beindividual from getting his or her fair gins to see hints of what could be crack at the professional life. coming by the displays put on by "That, frankly, is one of the main black students in science expositions. reasons I accepted the nomination as There seems to be a greater than director," he says. "I felt I would have usual emphasis on applying science to no better opportunity to serve as a human concerns. role model and to materially affect But an NSF director has a much the educational opportunities for wider array of responsibilities than minorities pursuing careers in science cultivating the well-being of minoriand engineering." ties. Slaughter knows the foundation Slaughter grew up in Topeka, Kan., and the political eddies that deterwhen the landmark Brown vs. the mine its policies. He ran the direcBoard of Education case began re- torate for astronomical, atmospheric, ceiving national attention. He says he earth, and ocean sciences. His views went from a wholly segregated grade were known then, and it's said that he school to a wholly integrated junior ran his directorate with equanimity high school to, again, a virtually seg- and poise in areas outside his regated (but presumably equal) high training. Aug. 4, 1980 C&EN
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It's no coincidence that the National Science Board knew what they were doing when they nominated him. He had the Washington experience. He could manage. And, probably mainly, he is an applied scientist and engineer. Application is no small issue today in Washington with all the talk about reindustrializing America. NSF stands to be in the thick of policies around that goal. During the next session of Congress, the push to create a National Engineering Foundation will be gathering steam. Many members of the House Science & Technology Committee are for it, not to speak of most engineering schools and all the engineering societies. The idea is not at all popular at NSF, to say the least. Staffers there fear that the new grant-giving agency would serve only to divert funds away from NSF's budget just as it was becoming a more muscular, billion-dollar agency. The impending debate is the main reason NSF is once again reorganizing its applied science and engineering programs. Slaughter's first job will be to see the reorganization through to completion and defend the action before Congress and most of his peers. "I certainly see the need for a greater appreciation of the engineer-
ing sciences," he says. "Engineering is important to improving such things as productivity and our living conditions. But I'm not quick to jump on the National Engineering Foundation bandwagon. I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit analysis would put such an organization on the right side of the ledger. I'm not strictly opposed to it, but I'm an agnostic on the issue." "On the other hand," he says, "I do believe there has to be a much better system for transferring the results of fundamental research to applied purposes. I'm pretty much opposed to the idea of one group being devoted to basic research while another devotes itself to applied research. I think the same people who are involved in basic research are the people who have the greatest opportunity to effect the transfer of technology." Many in NSF's applied areas would debate that. But Slaughter's attitude reflects NSF's current reorganization philosophy. The idea is to create a separate engineering directorate— which is what support-starved engineering schools are clamoring for— and spread funding for applied research through the basic research divisions. What he will have to tackle as soon as he takes office in Washington is the sagging morale problem.
throughout NSF's applied science sections. The staff feels buffeted and victimized by chronic political pressures calling for new directions in applied research. Slaughter knows, though, that the foundation is the best of all the agencies at giving out money for good science. It's a record that needs little defense. But he feels that NSF must accurately reflect trends within the sciences, too, such as those within and affected by his own field of information and computer science and their interface with the social and behavioral sciences. Exciting things are happening in those fields, but so far NSF lacks a comprehensive approach to support areas where the fields blend. Computer science, information science, and social science all lie in separate directorates. Thus, the selection of Slaughter as the next head of NSF gives some flight to imagination. A black person appointed to high office in public administration isn't a rarity anymore. But in scientific research, industry, and academia it is still an eyebrowraising event. He does symbolize perhaps the next stage in the rise of minorities in a technological society, and in his case maybe the beginning of a more humanizing era. Wil Lepkowski, Washington
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