Community Colleges in the Evolving STEM Education Landscape Summary of a Summit (2012) / Chapter Skim
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2 Expanding Minority Participation in Undergraduate STEM Education
2 Expanding Minority Participation in Undergraduate STEM Education
Pages 11-18
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From page 11... ...
Minority groups underrepresented in STEM fields soon will make up the majority of school-age children in the United States (Frey, 2012)
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From page 12... ...
According to 2006 data, of Americans aged 25 to 34, only about one quarter of African Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders had earned at least an associate's degree, and fewer than one in five Hispanics had reached this educational level. In 2000, the United States ranked 20th in the world in the percentage of 24-year-olds who had earned a first college degree in the natural sciences and engineering, Hrabowski noted.
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From page 13... ...
Stu dents who have had less exposure to STEM and to postsecondary education than others require more intensive efforts at each level to provide adequate preparation, financial support, mentoring, social integration, and professional development. Evaluations of STEM programs, along with increased research on the many dimensions of underrepresented minorities' experiences, are needed to ensure that programs are well informed, well designed, and successful.
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From page 14... ...
He said K-12 education does need to be strengthened, but more students are better prepared than many faculty and administrators at colleges and universities think. According to Sylvia Hurtado, who directs the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was on the NRC committee Hrabowski chaired, the larger the number of Advanced Placement credits a student has taken, the higher the SAT, and the more selective the university, the greater the probability the student will leave science as an undergraduate, noting "It is not just a matter of preparation." When college presidents point out to Hrabowski that most of the underrepresented students interested in science and engineering leave these majors, he responds that the majority of white and Asian American students do, too.
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From page 15... ...
Several federal programs facilitate the transfer of underrepresented minorities from community colleges to four-year institutions, Hrabowski noted, such as the Bridges to the Baccalaureate2 Program and the Community College Summer Enrichment Program at NIH.3 Community colleges also have mounted such promising initiatives as Miami Dade College's Windows of Opportunity Program,4 which helps academically promising, low-income students in obtaining associate's degrees in the arts or in STEM disciplines. Strategies that promote transfer include grants that allow community college students to work less outside of their academic programs and complete their associate's degrees in three years and then successfully transfer to complete their four-year degrees.
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From page 16... ...
"It is amazing how much more students will do when they get connected to the company early." PROGRAMS AT UMBC Hrabowski mentioned several programs at UMBC, which is nationally recognized for its Meyerhoff Scholars Program,7 that involve community colleges. For example, UMBC has a Chemistry Discovery Center 8 that is working with community colleges with an emphasis on group work, use of technology, collaboration, and professional development for faculty.
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From page 17... ...
"It has everything to do with the hunger for the knowledge," Hrabowski said. "You have to work really hard." DISCUSSION During the discussion period, Hrabowski remarked on some of the factors behind the success of the Meyerhoff Program, which is the national leader in producing African American graduates at a predominantly white school who go on to complete their PhD in science and engineering, with 12 to 15 of these graduates typically earning a STEM PhD each year.
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From page 18... ...
"We don't want three physics faculty in 34 community colleges in Washington State," she said. "We want 30 women teaching physics in Washington State.
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