The fact that thousands of capable minority students miss out on careers in engineering is a "massive brain drain," says John Brooks Slaughter, a former director of the National Science Foundation and now president and chief executive officer of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. The consequences of losing these students, and strategies for improvement, are the topics for discussion during Slaughter's visit to Cornell Univeristy Thursday, Oct. 4.

Slaughter will deliver a lecture titled "Engineering Excellence and Equity" at 4 p.m. in Room 255 Olin Hall. The talk is free of charge and open to the public. A student-sponsored reception follows the lecture in McManus Lounge, Hollister Hall.

Slaughter also will meet with university and college leaders to discuss issues of academic diversity and equity during his visit.

". . . It is no joke when I say that I was the first black engineer I ever met," Slaughter has said in speaking of his graduation from Kansas State University in electrical engineering in 1956. "Then, the term 'black engineer' was nearly an oxymoron." Slaughter went on to earn a Ph.D. in engineering science from the University of California. After working for General Dynamics and the U. S. Naval Electronics Laboratory he served as director of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington. In 1977 he became assistant director of the National Science Foundation and served as director of NSF from 1980 to 1982, by appointment by president Ronald Reagan. Following that he became chancellor of the University of Maryland.

Although the statistics for minorities in engineering have improved since the 1950s, the rate of improvement remains discouraging, according to Slaughter. "More than a half-million minority students graduate from high school each year, but only 32,000 of them have the necessary math and science to even be considered for entry into engineering. About 21,000 are fully qualified to go to an engineering school and 14,000 of them actually enroll," he has reported.

Slaughter's visit to Cornell is part of the College of Engineering Culture & Diversity Lecture Series. For more information, contact Char Jeffris, (cq) at 255-0735.