The National "Expertise Gap"

This article discusses the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's report, "Diversity and the Ph.D.," released in May, which documents in troubling detail the exact dimensions of what the foundation's president, Dr. Robert Weisbuch, is calling the national "expertise gap." Weisbuch states that the expertise gap extends beyond the professoriate. It is diminishing America's national leadership in any number of professional endeavors, from determining economic policy to designing museums to inventing new pharmaceuticals. He adds that given America's current dependence on foreign nationals to flesh out the doctoral ranks--one in three Ph.D. recipients in 2003 was an international student--it is a gap that has national security implications. Looking at the experiences of foundations that have been national leaders in diversifying the Ph.D. ranks--Ford Motor Company, Bill & Melinda Gates, Alfred P. Sloan, Mellon, and others--the report concludes that the slow, incremental progress of the past 20 years could come to a screeching halt.