National Academy of Sciences recognizes Pacific Islander underrepresentation... Which means Missouri Scholarship does too!

We've been sharing a lot of good news with you since completing our national study on Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander access to underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships last fall, and providing information to the programs that excluded Pacific Islanders at the time of our study. That's because the scholarships and fellowships are making the right decision -- to include Pacific Islanders -- after reviewing decades of data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education.

Several leading academic entities recognized this well before last year's national study, like the National Academy of Sciences. In 2011, their report on underrepresented minorities recognized that Pacific Islanders are an underrepresented group. (You can read that report here: LINK.)

On page 22 of that report, they write:

Underrepresented minorities, as used in this report, refer to African Americans, Hispanic or Latino Americans, Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. Asians, while a minority group in the U.S. population, are typically overrepresented in science and engineering fields. Pacific Islanders are considered an underrepresented group. However, most national data sets for scientists and engineers aggregate Asians and Pacific Islanders, so it is generally impossible to present separate data for this group. 

Recognition by the National Academies of Science is important for many reasons. One you might not think of: at least one state sets its definition of underrepresented (for the purposes of a state-run scholarship) based on what the National Academy of Sciences says.

We're referring to the State of Missouri's Minority and Underrepresented Environmental Literacy Program, which runs a scholarship to help high achieving underrepresented minorities earn a degree in an environmental field of study. This program includes Pacific Islanders as an underrepresented minority.

Why? Because Missouri law provides that for this program, the definition of "underrepresented minority" will follow the data and findings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mahalo to the National Academy of Sciences for recognizing the data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation, and to the State of Missouri for establishing a standard that includes deserving underrepresented minority groups.

Kawika

For those interested, here is a link to the State of Missouri's Minority and Underrepresented Environmental Literacy Program: LINK

Here is a link to the Missouri State law I mentioned: LINK

And just for good measure, we've pasted a copy of the relevant section of the Missouri Revised Statutes:

Missouri Revised Statutes

Chapter 173
Department of Higher Education
Section 173.240 
August 28, 2012

Program established--fund created--purpose--administration--rulemaking authority--advisory committee created, members, duties.173.240. 1. There is hereby established within the department of higher education a "Minority and Underrepresented Environmental Literacy Program". The department of higher education, hereafter referred to as the department, may award scholarships to minority and underrepresented students to pursue environmentally related courses of study. The scholarships shall be administered by the department recruitment and retention program under the supervision of the minority environmental literacy advisory committee established under this section. Those ethnic groups which are most severely underrepresented, as determined by data gathered and maintained by the National Academy of Sciences, shall receive priority in annual selection.

Martin Luther King Jr Scholarship for underrepresented minorites changes policy, now recognizes Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders!

We are happy to share that another important scholarship program for underrepresented minorities has chosen to open its doors to Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders! 

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), which administers the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship, is adding Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders (aka "Pacific Islanders") to the list of underrepresented minorities who are eligible to apply.

This change gives Pacific Islanders the chance to apply for a scholarship that grants $80,000 in financial aid each year to high achieving underrepresented minorities.

We commend everyone who was involved in making this important change for the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship, especially those who we've been communicating with over the past months.

After completing our national study on Pacific Islander access to underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships, the P.I.A. project reached out to the Martin Luther King Jr. program. We shared our findings, as well as related policies and decades of data confirming that Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented at the undergraduate and graduate level. This week, they shared that they have decided to add Pacific Islanders, and that the policy change will be reflected in future applications.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship program was established in 1985 at UIC to help underrepresented minorities who have demonstrated high academic achievement as well as commitment through community and campus service. Each year, the scholarship provides $80,000 in financial aid to underrepresented minorities, through 15 undergraduate scholarships ($2,000 each), 5 graduate fellowships ($5,000 each), and five professional fellowships ($5,000 each).

In making this significant and commendable change, the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship joins the HBCU Minority Scholarship, Actuarial Diversity Scholarship, and two National Medical Fellowships scholarships for underrepresented minorities. This is the fifth underrepresented minority scholarship to choose to include Pacific Islanders in the six months since the P.I.A. project started sharing our data with academic programs and asking them to revisit their policies.

Once again, mahalo nui loa to everyone responsible for making the right choice and opening up this important scholarship to a deserving, underrepresented group!

Kawika

Update on Pacific Islander access to Underrepresented Minority Programs: Eligibility Rising, Exclusion Falling

(Click on infographic to view larger image)

Last fall, we shared our national study on Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander access to underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships. It was important for us to do this study, because we wanted to see how much things had changed since this problem was measured in 2004. We also wanted to be able to show you exactly how many scholarships and fellowships followed the clear data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation (vs those who don't). 

Since then, we've been reaching out to the programs in our sample who still needed to change their policies to reflect the decades of data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation. We wanted to reach out to them first because we believe that if these well-intended programs see the facts, they will choose to change their policies and let Pacific Islanders in. 

So far, that approach has achieved slow but steady results. In the past six months, four scholarships have changed their eligibility policies after hearing from us!  That increase in programs that recognize Pacific Islander underrepresentation -- from 28 percent to 36 percent -- is a slightly higher rate of change we saw from 2004 to 2012 (21 to 28 percent). 

In other words, we've made more progress in the last six months than had been made in the last eight years before P.I.A. project started sharing the data with the scholarships and fellowships!

The Pacific Islander Project is proud to have played a part in this, but it's the scholarships and fellowships themselves that deserve credit for changing their policies. Mahalo again to the HBCU Minority Scholarship, the Actuarial Foundation, and National Medical Fellowships Inc (which opened up both of its two underrepresented minority scholarships) for making the right choice! 

Kawika