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minority students. Such programs, already in existence at SI, need still more financial support, and should cover all grade levels.  SI should work with interns over long periods of time, and establish tracking systems that can monitor their experience and evaluate the outcome of specific programs.

Fifth, Smithsonian Magazine, which represents SI to so many Americans throughout the country, could well reexamine its subject matter so that its coverage would strengthen even more the goals of cultural diversity that are parts of SI mission.

Sixth and finally, in the face of the real fiscal and economic problems SI faces now, and will continue to face, the goals of attaining true cultural diversity and equity should not be diminished. Indeed they should be reaffirmed. At least one Council member has suggested thinking about redirecting the funds and energies supporting the Quincentenary Program into new initiatives with analogous, culturally diverse goals, like the Institute of the Americas.

In the latter part of the afternoon, led by Council moderator Shirley Malcolm, the Council addressed the SI role in the training of under represented minorities and women in the sciences. Some of the issues here had come up earlier, and others would be considered the following morning, as part of the session on bio-diversity. Nonetheless, the Council talked about existing internship programs, the patterns of minority entry into Ph.D. and medical school programs, the importance of expending greater, more continuous efforts on smaller numbers of promising students over longer periods of time, the strengthening of grade school programs, many of which are already in place at SI, the significance of undergraduate research experiences, the particular excitement of natural history work as an entry to later scientific careers, and similar matters. There was general agreement that we need to know more about the relationship between student decisions to make their careers in science and the character of their earlier experiences. Several Council members talked autobiographically about some of the ingredients that went into their own decisions to enter upon careers in science, and the influence upon them of individual mentors. And it is recommended that SI continue to explore relationships with other organizations like QEM, and AAAS, which share interests, concerns, and knowledge of effective programming in this area. Other specific recommendations from this discussion are better treated in relation to our bio-diversity session.

On Saturday morning Council Moderators Shirley Malcolm, Robert May, and Matthew Meselson, joined by new Council member Arturo Gomez-Pompa, led a discussion of biological diversity. This responded to a Council agenda request of the previous year. We had been supplied with various background documents which paid particular attention to the role of SI in scientific training and education. Assistant Secretaries Robert Hoffmann and Thomas Lovejoy, Director Frank Talbot, and other staff who were present, also participated.

The discussion considered, among other things, the state of systematics in the United States, the declining resources available