As one of the first major works to record the experience of black engineering students in North America, the text is a milestone.
David C. K. Tay, Canadian Consulting Engineer
This book offers a wealth of insights on the experience of African American students at a leading university that no recitation of statistics could duplciate—before the students entered, while they were enrolled, and after they graduated. The varied personal accounts remind us never to regard any ethnic group as monolithic, while acquainting us with the special burdens that almost all black students experience in a predominantly white university. For anyone concerned with student affairs or affirmative action, this is a valuable, informative volume.
Derek Bok, The 300th Anniversary University Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Harvard president Derek Bok once said that recruiting and promoting black faculty was like being confronted with a great block of inertia. Here, in the MIT story from Dr. Clarence Williams, is the best account so far of how and why established academic departments at another great university fail to hire or tenure even the most gifted black scholars and teachers.
Theodore Cross, Editor, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Technology and the Dream: Reflections on the MIT Experience, 1950-1999 is a MUST READ for anyone interested in effective recruitment and retention of underrepresented segments of our society at highly selective universities. Univeristy administrators, faculty, prospective students, parents, high school teachers and college counselors can all benefit from this book. Descriptions from students of their individual experiences and real insight from key administrators separate this book from the simplistic, aggregated assertions about intelligence and motivation being published elsewhere.
James I. Cash, Jr., James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean, Publication Activities, Harvard Business School
This extraordinary compilation of reflections on the black experience at MIT offers a personal voice to a history that is still unfolding. Clarence Williams' introductory essay, which details the history of determined efforts by a great university to become more invlusive, is a high compliment to MIT yet is not self-congratulatory. There are lessons here for everyone interested in broadening educational opportunity in America.
Willam G. Bowen, President, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; President-Emeritus, Princeton University
Technology and the Dream: Reflections on the Black Experience at MIT, 1941–1999 is a must for anyone interested in promoting diversity at a major higher education institution. It is also a valuable collection of MIT's efforts to increase African American presence. I highly recommend it.
Julius L. Chambers, Chancellor, North Carolina Central University
