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Why begin with a focus on women and people of color? One question that may arise concerns why women and people of color need special focus. Although there has been visible progress in the status of women and people of color in the profession of political science, significant concerns remain. In particular, the initial focus on recruitment of women and people of color in the profession is now linked to a concern with their retention and to the broader question of professional development and advancement.

Achieving tenure and promotion are critical but other aspects of professional development are also key, e.g., gaining recognition of one's research and teaching contributions, winning grants, honors and awards, advancing through the ranks, and finding opportunities to serve in the profession. Although these markers of a successful and satisfying career -- tenure, honors and awards, professional roles--- formally are available to all political scientists, in practice women and people of color are less likely to achieve them. In short, too few women and minority political scientists succeed in becoming integrated as full and equal participants in professional life. For the APSA, over time this will mean a continuing deficit in the rates of tenured women and minority faculty and further declines in membership support of younger faculty, especially women faculty who fail to see opportunities for professional development available in the Association. [1]

Many factors contribute to these problems of retention, integration and advancement. For example, many women and people of color are hampered in their efforts to earn tenure, advance, and become integrated in the profession because they are isolated on faculties and in academic settings where support is minimal or problematic. We hope that an APSA mentoring initiative will mitigate this professional isolation by providing support for women and minority faculty members at critical career points and position the Association as a key force encouraging the full integration of women political scientists. We felt APSA needed to take immediate steps to create a climate and "opportunity structure" that increases the chances that more women and miority political scientists will develop successful and satisfying careers and professional integration. By sponsoring a mentoring project for women and minority political scientists, the Association signaled its support for the full participation and integration of women political scientists into the profession.

One goal of the Task Force thus is to provide support for minority and underrepresented groups, for isolated individuals, and to reduce burnout and increase retention rates, as well as increase the opportunities for women to achieve the experience necessary to move into leadership roles within the APSA hierarchy. We thus felt that having an officially-endorsed APSA program would be invaluable in helping coordinate the different regional and possibly state associations and will provide a formal body which can apply for the minimal funding necessary to keep such a program active. [2]

_{^{[1] The MIT Study suggests the problem is not disappearing at a fast rate and provides evidence that institutionalized action is necessary to remedy this problem. Details on the situation for women within the political science community and within the APSA itself are presented in an article by Kristen Monroe in the June 2002 issue of PS. Data from the largest single university in the country, the University of California, suggest women are 50% of the population, 44% of all PhD.s, but only 25% of all the new hires at UC. For further information on the situation for women in academia, see Linda Valian, Why so Slow?: The Advancement of Women. MIT, 1998.}}

^{[2] In past months, there has been much discussion among the members of the WCPS about how best to honor the memory of several female political scientists who have recently died. The existence of such a mentoring program would provide a useful site for such donations.}