Reporter Volume 25, No.29 June 13, 1994

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
News Bureau Staff
When Dexter Johnson received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from
UB last month, it was a milestone event for him, as well as for BEAM,
the Buffalo-area Engineering Awareness for Minorities program.
	Johnson, who participated in the industry-supported program in
high school, is the first BEAM participant to earn a Ph.D. in
engineering. He has been working since 1990 as a research engineer in
the structural dynamics branch of the NASA Lewis Research Center in
Cleveland.
	"This particular success story demonstrates why these programs
have to be long-range, they can't be one-shot deals," said George C.
Lee, dean of UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and
co-founder of BEAM. 
	"We start with students as early as the fifth and sixth grades
and stay with them until they go as far as they can. It's a multiyear
commitment," Lee said.
	Headquartered in UB's school of engineering, BEAM's outreach
and summer programs are staffed by engineers from local companies and
colleges who volunteer their time, often taking on a "big brother/big
sister" role in the lives of the students.          
	Designed to interest minority students in the inner city in
careers in engineering, BEAM has reached about 2,500 students since
its inception in the early 1980s.
	"Around that time, we were all trying to hire minorities and
women in technical fields, but there weren't many," remembers Dorothy
Gogel, former supervisor of training at General Motors, who now
volunteers as BEAM executive director. "So we decided to 'grow our
own.'"
	Together with UB, Canisius College and Erie Community College,
local businesses joined in an effort to stimulate interest in
engineering among inner-city students.
	Today, BEAM is supported solely by dues it receives from its
30 member companies, including Allied-Signal, General Motors, Praxair,
Du Pont, Occidental Chemical, Olin, Fisher-Price, EGW Associates,
Calspan, Ford Motor and Moog. Community groups, government agencies
and schools provide other resources.
	According to an informal survey of former BEAM students, an
estimated 65 percent go on to college. This year, BEAM also had its
first student graduate from medical school when Yvonne Baker received
a medical degree from UB.
	Dexter Johnson, like most teenagers, didn't know much about
engineering when he was a student at City Honors High School in
Buffalo. 
	He got involved in BEAM in his junior year, taking a class at
UB that was an introduction to engineering. "The instructors
introduced us to the different engineering fields, told us what skills
were needed, and gave us projects to work on that required someJJ
elementary engineering," he said. "That was when I fell in loveJwith
aerospace engineering."
	Johnson saw that his childhood passion for air and space
travel, kindled by news accounts of the Apollo space flights, was a
perfect match with a career in aerospace engineering. In 1982, he was
accepted into UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Just
before graduation in 1987, he was awarded a graduate student
fellowship sponsored by NASA at its Langley Space Center in Hampton,
Va. 
	He worked on his master's degree under the direction of Daniel
Inman, then professor and chair of the UB Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering. Through his NASA research, Johnson accumulated
additional credits that were applied toward his doctorate.
	According to Lee, the value of BEAM lies in the excitement it
can engender by exposing students to ideas they would not encounter
otherwise. "High school kids don't know what engineering is," said
Lee. "The purpose of BEAM is to introduce them to it and show them how
we use science and engineering to solve problems."
	Through after-school clubs, summer programs and "Saturday
Academies," BEAM tries to develop an interest in engineering in
students, sometimes starting as early as the fifth grade. 
	Junior high and high school students chosen to participate in
BEAM's summer programs attend academic-enrichment and
introduction-to-engineering classes, and visit local companies. Others
have the chance to work on research projects in engineering labs at
UB.
	"During the time that they're here, we try to convince them
that engineering is a good career choice," said Lee.