This is the time of year when doctoral candidates apply for psychology internship positions for the upcoming academic year. These internships will provide invaluable skills and professional connections for the rest of their career. A common characteristic many of these hopefuls share is that they are not African American.
Affirmative Action is said to have died many years ago as more minorities entered psychology graduate programs. Is the best place to advocate for the consideration of more Blacks in the selection process? It is commonly known that once the interview process has begun it is too late to consider providing opportunities to minority students.
Perhaps there is a kernel of truth in this statement. According to national statistics only 2% of all psychologists are Black. In trying to increase representation of minority students to compete in doctoral level internships, the problem may well be that there are not enough in the pool to choose from.
It can be inferred that the next logical step is to become involved with recruiting Black students in college and high school who are interested in careers in psychology to develop a curriculum similar to what is known as 'pre-med'. Where do we start? Perhaps by joining organizations like the Association of Black Psychologists is a great place to begin planting the seeds for our students and in turn increasing racial diversity in top psychology internship programs.
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