Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job Read Online Free PDF Page A

interservice taskforce charged with studying causes and possible cures of conflicts within the military. This led to the establishment of the Defense Race Relations Institute (DRRI) in 1971 at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. The DRRI, renamed the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (or DEOMI), has trained more than forty thousand reserve and active duty military members and civilian employees of the American armed forces since its creation. The name change reflects the growing array of issues included in DEOMI courses, including the study of racism, sexual harassment, sexism, extremism, religious accommodation, and anti-Semitism . Richard’s book on the subject, Racial Strife in the U.S. Military , was published in 1979. In recognition of his work, Patrick Air Force Base dedicated a building to him in 2011, called the Richard Oliver Hope Research Center.
    The largest portion of Richard’s fifty-eight-year career in sociology, public policy, and the academy has been spent at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (WWNFF), based in Princeton, New Jersey. Although he retired in 2010 after twenty years as vice president of higher education fellowships at WWNFF, he remains with the foundation as a senior fellow. A major thrust of the fellowship programs is strengthening the capacity of underrepresented minorities and women to pursue international service careers as public policy analysts and leaders. In his presentation at a UCLA conference, Richard challenged the country “to examine and renew its commitment to preparing the most talented students for the global economic and international affairs responsibilities that will occupy center stage in the coming decades. While efforts have been under way in recent years to educate a cadre of minority policy professionals in the international sphere, statistics indicate that minorities still remain greatly underrepresented at the highest levels of the international affairs hierarchy. A new public/private partnership is required that will promote international career opportunities for talented students of color.” He went on to describe WWNFF’s programs that promote diversity for the twenty-first century and that can serve as models for expanding international affairs opportunities.
    One of the programs he administered, the Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program (named for Career Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering), has produced more than six hundred foreign service officers, including a number of ambassadors, most of whom are women and minorities. In 1990, when President Nelson Mandela heard about the Pickering program, the US State Department established the Public Policy Partnership in South Africa. Each year, these fellowships support two hundred undergraduate students through the master’s degree program, training them at universities in Cape Town, Natal, and (in this country) at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, for government positions in public policy.
    Another initiative, the Career Enhancement Program, aims to expand the number of minorities and women in the academy, providing them with mentors and funding them for a year while they prepare for tenure. Some seven hundred faculty have received such assistance to date.
    “Why did you step down from the WWNFF?” I asked Richard. “Twenty years is enough,” he pronounced. “And, there is an excellent staff in place to continue the programs.” His current focus is heading up a new foundation for the US Department of Defense that will support and expand diversity programs. He serves on the board of the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs in Atlanta. He may also become involved as a consultant to USAFRICOM, one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the US armed forces , which is responsible for promoting a stable and secure African environment in support of US foreign policy.
    Richard also wants to make more time for family—his wife, Alice, a retired schoolteacher, and