Plan Seeks To Boost Number of Black Ph.D.'s

By Meg Sommerfeld

Hoping to end the "shocking underrepresentation'' of African-Americans on the faculties of the nation's colleges and universities, two public higher-education associations have launched an initiative to increase the number of black doctoral candidates.

Last week, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities unveiled a plan to help universities that offer doctoral degrees identify promising undergraduates at historically black colleges and universities, with the help of a networked computer data base.

The General Electric Foundation has awarded the two groups a $119,000 grant to launch the initiative, known as the National Minority Graduate Feeder Program. The grant is one component of the foundation's larger $20 million decadelong "Faculty for the Future'' program, an effort it launched in 1989 to increase the number of women and minority-group members who teach at the nation's engineering, physical-science,...