Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 11
2
Expanding Minority Participation in
Undergraduate STEM Education
Important Points Made by the Speaker
• ommunity colleges need to be integrally involved in a comprehensive,
C
coordinated, and sustained effort to increase the participation of under-
represented minorities in STEM education and careers.
• ncreasing the completion rate of underrepresented minorities in STEM
I
majors requires a combination of strong academic, social, and financial
support.
• o increase the number of U.S. students who earn degrees in STEM fields,
T
all institutions of higher education must work to create a culture in which it
is “cool to be smart.”
The demographics of the U.S. population are undergoing a dramatic
shift, observed Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Mary-
land, Baltimore County (UMBC), in his keynote speech at the summit.
Minority groups underrepresented in STEM fields soon will make up
the majority of school-age children in the United States (Frey, 2012). To
maintain the strength and vitality of science and technology in the United
States, many more of these minority children must not only decide to
become scientists and engineers but succeed in educational pathways that
allow them to do so. Given the overrepresentation of minority students
in community colleges, community colleges will be critical in achieving
this goal.
Drawing from the recent report of a committee that he chaired
11
OCR for page 12
12 COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE EVOLVING STEM EDUCATION LANDSCAPE
(National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and
Institute of Medicine, 2011), Hrabowski pointed out that the proportion of
underrepresented minorities in the natural sciences and engineering was
less than a third of their share of the overall population in 2006 (National
Science Foundation, 2011). In other words, the proportion of underrep-
resented minorities in science and engineering would need to triple to
match their representation in the overall U.S. population.
This underrepresentation of minorities in the science and engineering
workforce stems from the underproduction of minorities in science and
engineering at every level of the pathways from elementary school to
higher education and the workplace. Though underrepresented minori-
ties now account for almost 40 percent of K-12 students in the United
States, they earn only 27 percent of the associate’s degrees from com -
munity colleges, only 17 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in the natural
sciences and engineering, and only 6.6 percent of the doctorates in those
fields.
President Obama has called on the United States to increase its post-
secondary completion rate from 39 percent to 58–60 percent by the year
2020.1 The challenge in doing so is greatest for minorities who are under-
represented in science and engineering. According to 2006 data, of Ameri-
cans 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 percent-
age of 24-year-olds who had earned a first college degree in the natural
sciences and engineering, Hrabowski noted. The report Rising Above the
Gathering Storm (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of
Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2007) called on the United States
to raise the percentage of 24-year-olds with a first degree in the natural
sciences and engineering from 6 percent to 10 percent. This would require
a tripling, quadrupling, or quintupling of the percentages for under-
represented minorities, which are 2.7 percent for African Americans, 3.3
percent for Native Americans, and 2.2 percent for Latinos.
INTENTIONS AND COMPLETIONS
Since the 1980s, underrepresented minorities have aspired to major
in science and engineering at about the same proportions as their white
and Asian American peers, Hrabowski observed. Yet they complete STEM
degrees in lower proportions than whites and Asian Americans. Five
1For additional information, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
completion_state_by_state.pdf.
OCR for page 13
13
EXPANDING MINORITY PARTICIPATION
years after matriculating, only about 20 percent of underrepresented
minorities who intended to earn a STEM degree have done so. Surpris-
ingly, only about one-third of whites and slightly more than 40 percent of
Asian Americans earn STEM degrees within five years.
Hrabowski ascribed part of this attrition to the culture of science and
engineering in college. A large part of the problem is the “weed-out”
mentality still held by many college faculty in these subjects, he said.
When students have difficulties with their initial classes, they are more
likely to be encouraged to transfer to another major than to receive help in
overcoming those difficulties. Hrabowski recounted talking to the direc-
tors of the institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and say -
ing that he had many friends who started in science or engineering and
became great lawyers. “Everybody laughed, but afterwards the General
Counsel of NIH came to me and said, ‘You just told my story. I went to
one of the Ivies. I started off in science. I had the best of test scores, the
best of grades. I got wiped out in the first year and I changed to pre-law.’
It happens all the time.” Not only do such experiences lead to fewer stu -
dents of all races majoring in science or engineering, but also they affect
attitudes in general toward the subjects. He said, “You have to ask, how
could Americans really love science or math . . . if they started off and
[ended] getting wiped out? There is a negativity. When I ask audiences,
‘How many of you love to read?’ everybody raises their hand. Then I ask,
‘How many of you love math?’ and people start to laugh.”
POLICY INITIATIVES
The problem is urgent, Hrabowski said. A national effort to address
underrepresented minority participation and success in STEM fields
needs to be initiated and sustained. This effort must focus on all seg -
ments of the pathways, all stakeholders, and the potential of all programs,
whether targeted at underrepresented minorities or at all students. Stu -
dents who have had less exposure to STEM and to postsecondary educa-
tion 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.
The NRC committee that Hrabowski chaired made recommenda -
tions in Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s
Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads (National Academy of
Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine,
2011) at the preschool through grade 12 level in the areas of early readi -
OCR for page 14
14 COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE EVOLVING STEM EDUCATION LANDSCAPE
ness, mathematics and science instruction, and teacher preparation and
retention. At the summit, however, Hrabowski focused his comments
on the postsecondary level. Underrepresented students need improved
access to postsecondary education and technical training. They need
more awareness of and motivation to pursue STEM education and
careers. They also need adequate financial support. “It is impossible
for a student to do well in biochemistry while working 25 hours on the
outside,” said Hrabowski. “When you are doing all of that work on the
outside, it is almost impossible to succeed in science.”
Colleges and universities need to institute reforms to increase the
inclusiveness and success of underrepresented students in STEM fields.
Colleges have a tendency to say that the problem is at the K-12 level, but
Hrabowski disagreed. He said K-12 education does need to be strength-
ened, but more students are better prepared than many faculty and admin-
istrators 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 inter-
ested in science and engineering leave these majors, he responds that the
majority of white and Asian American students do, too.
The NRC (2011) committee recommended increasing the completion
rate of underrepresented students by providing strong academic, social,
and financial support. This support should come from programs that
simultaneously integrate academic, social, and professional development.
Programs also are needed that facilitate the transition from undergraduate
to graduate education and provide support for graduate students.
THE CHALLENGE FOR TWO-YEAR INSTITUTIONS
Hrabowski cited several challenges that are particularly acute for
community colleges. Inadequate levels of mathematical preparation are
a problem for almost all colleges and universities, but it is an especially
difficult problem at community colleges. (This issue is the subject of
Chapter 5.) Community colleges also need to balance the tasks of prepar-
ing students for further study at four-year colleges and graduate schools
along with preparation resulting in two-year degrees and other certifi-
cates for the technical workforce. To facilitate and increase the transfer of
underrepresented students in STEM to four-year institutions, increased
emphasis and support are needed for articulation agreements, summer
OCR for page 15
15
EXPANDING MINORITY PARTICIPATION
bridge programs, mentoring, academic and career counseling, peer sup-
port, tutoring, social integration activities, study groups, undergraduate
research, and tracking of student progress. (Transfer issues are discussed
in Chapter 6.)
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 Commu-
nity 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 promis-
ing, 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.
The Gates Foundation is supporting research in the state of Maryland
to track students who have been majoring in science and pre-engineering
areas and look at what happens to them when they come to four-year
institutions. The underlying objective is to get faculty at different institu -
tions to talk honestly and openly about how work at one level is related
to work at the next level. Even if courses have the same name, they may
not be at the same level, so students who transfer to a four-year college are
not as prepared as they need to be, Hrabowski stated. The initiative also
gives faculty at the four-year institutions a better idea of the challenges
that community colleges are facing.5
Finally, Hrabowski emphasized the potential for internships to moti-
vate students and prepare them for careers. “When students have intern -
ships . . . and see the connection between their academic work and what is
going on in a company, they get even more excited,” he said. Internships
make students more serious about their work. The needs of industry can
be infused into the curriculum, especially when people from business are
involved in developing or teaching the courses. Students learn how to
work in teams, express themselves clearly, and gain other 21st century
2Additional information is available at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Research/Mechanisms/
BridgesBaccalaureate.htm.
3Additional information is available at https://www.training.nih.gov/ccsep_home_page.
4Additional information is available at http://www.toolsforsuccess.org/#SlideFrame_1.
5A website for this program was not available at the time that this report was pre-
pared. Additional information about this program is currently available as a downloadable
PowerPoint presentation titled “A Shared Responsibility: Creating a t-STEM Friendly Multi-
Campus Community (T-STEM Cross-Campus Collaboration Team, UMBC)” at http://
transferinstitute.unt.edu/content/10th-annual-conference-national-institute-study-transfer-
students.
OCR for page 16
16 COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE EVOLVING STEM EDUCATION LANDSCAPE
skills6 that they can use in the workplace (e.g., National Research Council,
2010). In the area of cybersecurity, to cite just one example, Hrabowski
noted that the majority of students who have internships go to work full
time for the same companies once they graduate. “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 nation-
ally recognized for its Meyerhoff Scholars Program,7 that involve com-
munity 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. The key, said Hrabowski, is to involve people in an activity that
they see as exciting. “That is the thing about my campus,” he said. “We
are seeing amazing results for students of all races where the emphasis is
on student engagement and on empowering students.”
UMBC has memoranda of understanding with four community col-
leges in Maryland, which enable both students and faculty to move back
and forth among the institutions, and similar arrangements could be
made at many four-year and two-year colleges. The Gates grant is also
producing more communication and movement among institutions.
UMBC has contacts with many companies in such areas as biotech-
nology, computer security, defense, and environmental protection that
are very interested in hiring students not just at the PhD level but at the
four-year and two-year levels as well. High school counselors, families,
and students all need to know about these options, which provide what
Hrabowski called “great jobs, good-paying jobs,” and about how to take
advantage of them.
UMBC enrolls students from 150 countries, and those international
students are hungry for knowledge. Having them on campus makes the
U.S. students focus and push harder, according to Hrabowski. Through-
6NRC (2010, p. 3) lists as “21st century skills” adaptability, complex communication/social
skills, non-routine problem solving, self-management and self-development, and systems
thinking. NRC (2011, p. 1) further refines this list to include “… being able to solve complex
problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively, communicate with people from a va -
riety of different cultures and using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration
with others, to adapt to rapidly changing environments and conditions for performing tasks,
to effectively manage one’s work, and to acquire new skills and information on one’s own.”
7Additional information is available at http://www.umbc.edu/meyerhoff/.
8Additional information is available at http://www.umbc.edu/chem/facilities/discovery.
html.
OCR for page 17
17
EXPANDING MINORITY PARTICIPATION
out the 20th century, many of the best figures in science and engineering
had parents who came from other countries. Today, the majority of black
students on Ivy League campuses have parents from another country. “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 engineer-
ing, with 12 to 15 of these graduates typically earning a STEM PhD each
year. The program has created a culture where it is “cool to be smart,”
Hrabowski said. Multiple academic and social connections link students
to each other, to faculty members, and to community members. Students
are engaged in projects rather than just sitting in lectures, which has
required that courses be redesigned. Students are connected with com-
panies through classroom projects and internships to show them what it
takes to get a good job. Graduates who get these jobs in turn come back
and talk with students. Recent graduates and current students know bet -
ter than anyone else how to get more students involved.
Hrabowski has written books on raising smart black children
(Hrabowski et al., 2002; Hrabowski, Maton, and Greif, 1998), and he
emphasized what parents in successful families do: work with their chil-
dren to develop their reading, thinking, and studying skills. Succeeding
in mathematics or science is not always fun, and he emphasized, “Hard
work is hard work. We have to get students engaged in the work.”
Hrabowski also noted during the discussion session that completion
of degree programs is a problem at community colleges. “Anybody from
a community college knows what I am saying. Most of the kids who start
off saying they want something at a two-year college do not finish the
program,” he said. NSF should support an effort to assess what percent-
age of community college students who start in STEM programs finish
them, Hrabowski urged.
Faculty and staff involvement is critical. Many faculty are not familiar
with the data regarding contributors to student performance. In making
decisions about education, they tend to rely on anecdotal or impression -
istic information, according to Hrabowski. Effective interventions require
that actions be based on data.
Summit participant Rebecca Hartzler, now at the Carnegie Founda -
tion for the Advancement of Teaching, pointed out that the numbers of
women and underrepresented minorities in some fields might need to
OCR for page 18
18 COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE EVOLVING STEM EDUCATION LANDSCAPE
increase by an order of magnitude for representation to be proportional.
She was the first tenured woman in physics in community colleges in
Washington State, and there may now be two more. “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. We [need]
much larger ambitions.”
