Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

5 Designing for Tomorrow's Students: Creating Equitable Opportunities for Undergraduate STEM Students
Pages 31-42

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 31...
... , noted the important role Community Colleges play in providing access to undergraduate education, discussed the challenges of navigating education as a low-income person, explored how some students must defy the beliefs others have that a person of color does not belong in STEM, and called for increased access to relevant experiential learning. IDEAS FOR 2040 Vicente Talanquer, university distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of Arizona, contributed to the panel discussion by elevating points made by idea competition winners about where STEM education should be by 2040.
From page 32...
... Panelists: Theresa Maldonado, Vice President for Research and Innovation, University of California System Yves Salomon-Fernández, President, Greenfield Community College Shanika Hope, Principal Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon Monica Van, Student, University of California, San Diego Moderator: Barbara Schaal, Mary Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor at Washington ­University in St. Louis; Committee Co-chair between academic units are torn down to allow for integrative and interdisciplinary curricular paths and where external walls have disappeared to allow for relevant and contextualized learning that takes place through experiences in the community (see Boxes 5-3 and Box 5-4 for some excerpts from two winning idea competition entries)
From page 33...
... SOURCE: Holly Matusovich and Kai Jun Chew, Virginia Tech. Matthews, the director of STEM learning innovation and associate vice provost for inclusive workforce development at Wayne State University, ­reflected on the idea competition entries and noted that many programs and interventions will need to be targeted to the needs of particular groups to be most effective, and she stressed the importance of including students in the development phase for that reason.
From page 34...
... Other ways to assess students' experiences, talents, and abilities will need to be devised before STEM educators eliminate exams and grading. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES NAVIGATING EDUCATION Multiple panelists shared aspects of their own experiences in STEM educa­tion.
From page 35...
... Chandler, provost and chief academic officer at the M ­ inerva Schools of the Keck G ­ raduate Institute, highlighted the life-changing oppor­tunities that Community C ­ olleges offer, particularly for students from lower-income groups, citing the benefits that she as a low-income single mother without a high school degree derived from enrolling. "My local Community College offered me, a first-generation college student, a low-cost pathway to college that would have been impossible any other way," she commented.
From page 36...
... Planning committee co-chair and Washington University in St. Louis faculty member Barbara Schaal asked Maldonado how the future demographic tsunami that will wash over the United States will affect university procedures and processes such as recruitment, admissions, student services, and all of the supports needed for a diverse student body.
From page 37...
... Speaking about college degrees and other credentials including nanodegrees, Hope said they "all have to work as a collective to enable this idea of lifelong learning and the ability to acquire new skills as jobs and labor markets change and evolve." She added that the notion that a baccalaureate degree and credentials are in competition is wrong. Instead, they have to work together to create additional avenues for learners to upskill and reskill and to serve as on- and off-ramps in the learning journey.
From page 38...
... What that implies, she said, is the need to connect experiential learning opportunities with the communities in which students live so that learning becomes rooted in the real world rather than remains abstract and conceptual. This approach, she noted, fits the desires of today's students to apply their education to tackle the problems confronting their communities, the nation, and the planet.
From page 39...
... Additionally, assessments that measure student growth rather than knowledge acquisition can better foster a student's ownership and agency in their own learning. These types of changes, Talanquer suggested, move beyond what he described as peripheral efforts to change the instruction offered by individual faculty members and instead adopt models that demand multiunit engagement in "critical action projects that have demonstrable impacts on the achievement, persistence, and retention of minority students." This is most important in large public universities, he added, where the focus on research productivity is traditionally used as an excuse for the lack of meaningful transformation.
From page 40...
... A CRUCIAL ROLE FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES Portland Community College president Mitsui emphasized that while talent is universal, opportunity is not, and that Community Colleges are designed to make opportunity universal. These institutions have democratized education in the United States, he noted, by offering open access while also facilitating the process of transferring to institutions that award baccalaureate degrees.
From page 41...
... have adopted practices that all institutions of higher education can learn and scale to accelerate needed changes, and agreed with the concept developed in a paper submitted to the idea competi tion ("­Improving Diversity in STEM through Community College Part ner Programs" by Kathryn McGill2) that expanding partnerships between Community Colleges and 4-year institutions is a good pathway for improving diversity in STEM.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.