Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads (2011) / Chapter Skim
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7 The Journey Beyond the Crossroads
7 The Journey Beyond the Crossroads
Pages 143-170
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Given the long time horizon for demonstrable results of efforts to improve the participation and success of underrepresented minorities in STEM, we cannot delay if 143
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Understanding that race and ethnicity -- and all that group identity may mean for social, economic, and educational opportunity -- comprise a key dimension of STEM educational attainment provides an important point of leverage for considering STEM education policy. Indeed, focusing on underrepresented minorities as a point of leverage in STEM education policy allows us to revisit existing education programs from a new perspective.
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STEM Fields/Underrepresented Minorities: NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) , Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP)
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5. A coordinated approach to existing federal STEM programs can leverage resources while supporting programs tailored to the specific missions, histories, cultures, student populations, and geographic locations of institutions with demonstrated success in the preparation and advancement of underrepresented minorities in STEM.
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Coordination of STEM education programs, including those focused on increasing the participation and success of underrepresented minorities, can be accomplished in several ways: 1. A Committee on STEM Education within the NSTC can help agencies share information on effective practices and also develop partnerships that leverage resources and increase impact.
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Federal agencies, higher education institutions, professional associations, and philanthropy can drive efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented minority students in STEM through program evaluation, identification of best practice, information dissemination activities, and support for inquiry that focuses on key areas of research. Program evaluation (summative and formative)
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These include mentoring, social support networks, institutional and departmental culture, attrition, and the characteristics of minority-serving institutions that enable them to nurture and sustain underrepresented minorities in STEM. Suggestions also include the need for additional research on the interrelationship of gender and race/ethnicity in STEM, developing a critical mass of underrepresented minority students in a program, and the impact of intervention programs.
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For example, as shown in Table 7-2, about one-third of the baccalaureate institutions for African American PhDs in STEM fields were HBCUs, and about two-thirds were non-HBCUs. An NSF analysis that normalized baccalaureate origin rankings by percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded to African Americans also showed that among PWIs, both research universities and liberal arts colleges contributed to the undergraduate education of future doctorates, as was the case for HBCUs.
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Predominantly White Institutions We need to increase retention of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students in NS&E fields on a large scale to influence their numbers in science and engineering, particularly at the doctoral level. The best way to do so is to replicate programs, resources, and focused efforts at the successful PWIs at a very large number of similar institutions, especially large state flagships (which could produce larger numbers and be more economical for students to attend)
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. Program Vision: Admitting a full spectrum of underrepresented minority students, some of which would be rejected using traditional admissions criteria, and then creating a community that provides academic, social, and personal support are the cornerstones of the CAAM program.
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Moreover, they play a role in hosting and entertaining visiting underrepresented minority students who have been accepted by the various departments. Retention: No quality captures the essence of the CAAM program like that of community.
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They have a legacy of recruiting, retaining, and graduating a disproportionate number of minorities, especially at the undergraduate level. MSIs enroll approximately 60 percent of all minority undergraduates at two-year and four-year institutions8 and are the baccalaureate origin of a large segment of minority STEM doctorate 6 Richard Tapia, "Minority Students and Research Universities: How to Overcome the ‘Mismatch," The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009.
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recipients, despite the fact that many are smaller than mainstream institutions and receive significantly fewer federal obligations for R&D and science and engineering. Much of their success is attributed to their mission to educate underrepresented minority students while providing a sensitive climate, role models, and emphases on teaching, peer support, mentoring, and service to their communities.
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Partnerships among MSIs and between MSIs and PWIs can be effective in building a sustained pipeline of minorities in STEM when these partnerships provide increased access to research opportunities for faculty and students, faculty and student exchanges, and knowledge transfer.9 Increasing the proportion of faculty at MSIs who are themselves underrepresented minorities can provide both greater opportunity and new role models for aspiring underrepresented minorities in STEM. Historically Black Colleges and Universities The fact that HBCUs enroll smaller percentages of African American students in S&E majors than do PWIs but graduate a larger percentage speaks to the efficacy of these institutions in retaining these students.
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This approach has resulted in Florida A&M University being ranked #1 for baccalaureate degrees awarded to African Americans in traditional higher educa tion institutions and ranked #1 as the baccalaureate origin institution of African American doctorates in Natural Sciences and Engineering (NS&E)
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If our purpose in identifying the top producers of undergraduates who go on to earn PhDs is to replicate especially successful programs for Hispanics, we should consider HSIs and PWIs that are top producers as similar in that, unlike HBCUs and Tribal Colleges and Universities, HSIs are not in general using very different strategies than top-producing PWIs. Some institutions, however, which have a longer history of deep engagement with Hispanic students, may be more similar to HBCUs than more recent additions to the HSI set and, as argued in a recent report from the University of Southern California, may be more able to provide useful models for both predominantly white institutions and new or emerging HSIs to increase their productivity of STEM degree completion.10 We should not lose track of the fact that more than half of HSIs are two-year colleges and that over half of the Hispanic postsecondary population (including S&E majors)
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"TCUs also offer place-based education -- programs that explicitly connect students with indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing and help them discover the relationship of this knowledge to modern science and social studies." Community Colleges Community colleges -- where the majority of underrepresented minority students begin postsecondary study -- provide educational opportunity for underrepresented minority students who seek to stay in their communities, save on educational expenses, or benefit from smaller class sizes or remedial work during their first two postsecondary years. With regard to STEM, these institutions provide a variety of educational opportunities.
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To facilitate and increase the successful transfer of underrepresented minorities to four-year institutions, an increased emphasis on, and support for, mentoring, academic and career counseling, peer support, and undergraduate research at two-year institutions is recommended. LEADERSHIP Leadership in identifying and articulating minority participation and success as an institutional goal is essential at all levels for all stakeholders: the federal government, state and local governments, employers, philanthropy, professional societies, educational institutions, programs, faculty, and students.
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DEVELOPING A PROGRAM The literature on best practices for increasing minority participation in STEM education provides guidance for the development and execution of the policies and programs that are designed to change the academic culture
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Second, many programs even on the same campus operate in isolation from other efforts. Making the aggregate of individual programs greater than the sum of their parts can be accomplished by connecting program leaders to a network of such individuals who administer minority programs at the institution and in their discipline through support, information sharing, and strategic coordination.
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Successful programs draw on the lessons learned from both best and worst practice -- both successful and unsuccessful programs. The Academic Competitiveness Council recommended a "living inventory" of STEM education programs that provides shared knowledge of effective practices.17 The development and mainte 17 Irma Arispe.
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2006. Final Report on the Evaluation of the National Science Founda tion Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Program.
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For minority students, who may feel like outsiders because they see few others "like themselves" among the student and faculty populations, this issue takes on even greater salience. The development of peer-to-peer support, study groups, program activities fostering social integration, and tutoring and mentoring programs may go a long way to overcome this critical hurdle.
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Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Established by the National Science Foundation, the LSAMP program aims to develop strategies to increase the quality and quantity of minority students who successfully complete degrees in STEM through multi-institution alliances across the nation.
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AGEP also sup ports the transformation of institutional culture to attract and retain STEM doctoral students into the professorate. Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)
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. Although mentoring has become an important element of most intervention programs for underrepresented minorities, research evidence on its effectiveness continues to be mostly qualitative.
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found that students switched out of mathematics, science, and engineering majors at higher rates than for other fields and that this was due in part to the culture of these fields and the characteristics of classes, particularly introductory classes, in these fields, some of which sought intentionally to "weed out" students. Further, they discovered that women and underrepresented minorities were more likely to be turned off by the way science is taught, internalizing difficulties when facing challenges rather than assigning blame to the larger scientific and educational culture.
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