1
A Strong Science and Engineering Workforce
ORIGINS OF THE STUDY
Many developing trends of the twenty-first century raise concerns about whether the U.S. science and engineering (S&E) enterprise—the collection of science- and technology-based industries and organizations, federal agencies, and educational institutions—can respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities. We are confronted by pandemics, terrorism, and natural disasters. We are challenged by the need for reliable and affordable energy and a cleaner global environment. We seek a healthier America with greater access to care, more effective medicines, and support for an aging population. We demand strong security, at home and abroad. We aim to develop new products and services for our consumers and to compete in the global marketplace. (See Box 1-1, Grand Challenges for Engineering.)
The importance of S&E to the United States has been documented in a series of reports over more than half a century, from Vannevar Bush’s Science, The Endless Frontier (1945) to Deborah Shapley and Rustum Roy’s Lost at the Frontier (1985) to the National Academies’ Rising Above the Gathering Storm (2007). (See Boxes 1-2 and 1-3.) Yet, while our capability in science and engineering is as strong as ever, the dominance of the United States in these fields has faded as the rest of the world has invested and grown in research and education capacities. Gathering Storm documented this global leveling and argued that the United States is at a crossroads: For the United States to maintain the global leadership and competitiveness in science and technology that are critical to achieving national goals today, we
BOX 1-1 Grand Challenges for Engineering In the century just ended, engineering recorded its grandest accomplishments. The widespread development and distribution of electricity and clean water, automobiles and airplanes, radio and television, spacecraft and lasers, antibiotics and medical imaging, and computers and the Internet are just some of the highlights from a century in which engineering revolutionized and improved virtually every aspect of human life. Find out more about the great engineering achievements of the 20th century from a separate NAE Web site: www.greatachievements.org. For all of these advances, though, the century ahead poses challenges as formidable as any from millennia past. As the population grows and its needs and desires expand, the problem of sustaining civilization’s continuing advancement, while still improving the quality of life, looms more immediate. Old and new threats to personal and public health demand more effective and more readily available treatments. Vulnerabilities to pandemic diseases, terrorist violence, and natural disasters require serious searches for new methods of protection and prevention. And products and processes that enhance the joy of living remain a top priority of engineering innovation, as they have been since the taming of fire and the invention of the wheel. In each of these broad realms of human concern—sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living —specific grand challenges await engineering solutions. The world’s cadre of engineers will seek ways to put knowledge into practice to meet these grand challenges. Applying the rules of reason, the findings of science, the aesthetics of art, and the spark of creative imagination, engineers will continue the tradition of forging a better future. —Introduction to The Grand Challenges for Engineering, Grand Challenges for Engineering Web site, National Academy of Engineering (2008). |
must invest in research, encourage innovation, and grow a strong, talented, and innovative science and technology workforce.1
This call to action in Gathering Storm resonated strongly in both national political parties and in the executive and legislative branches of government, resulting in the American Competitiveness Initiative, the Academic Competitiveness Council, the America COMPETES Act, and spending provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In passing the America COMPETES Act in the summer of 2007, Congress laid the groundwork for the implementation of many of the recommendations from Gathering Storm.2 In passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
BOX 1-2 Science: The Endless Frontier One of our hopes is that after the war there will be full employment. To reach that goal the full creative and productive energies of the American people must be released. To create more jobs we must make new and better and cheaper products. We want plenty of new, vigorous enterprises. But new products and processes are not born full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions which in turn result from basic scientific research. Basic scientific research is scientific capital. Moreover, we cannot any longer depend upon Europe as a major source of this scientific capital. Clearly, more and better scientific research is one essential to the achievement of our goal of full employment. How do we increase this scientific capital? First, we must have plenty of men and women trained in science, for upon them depends both the creation of new knowledge and its application to practical purposes. We shall have rapid or slow advance on any scientific frontier depending on the number of highly qualified and trained scientists exploring it…. The government should accept new responsibilities for promoting the flow of new scientific knowledge and the development of scientific talent in our youth. These responsibilities are the proper concern of the government, for they vitally affect our health, our jobs, and our national security. It is in keeping also with basic United States policy that the government should foster the opening of new frontiers and this is the modern way to do it. —From Vannevar Bush, Science: The Endless Frontier, a report to the President, July 1945. |
of 2009 (the Stimulus Act), Congress provided the funding necessary to move forward with the recommendations. (The excerpt from Rising Above the Gathering Storm in Box 1-4 provides a description of the innovation and competitiveness policy context. For the education and workforce recommendations of Rising Above the Gathering Storm, see Appendix E.)
These topics are not new. In Educating Americans for the 21st Century (1983) the National Science Board Commission on Precollege Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology presented a plan of action for improving mathematics, science, and technology education for all American elementary and secondary students and articulated the need for well-trained, highly qualified teachers of mathematics in a technological society.
Nevertheless, critical issues for the nation’s S&E infrastructure remain unsettled, in particular the future strength of our nation’s science and engineering workforce in light of demographic trends in both the U.S. population and the science and engineering workforce. The Gathering Storm provided compelling recommendations for sustaining and increasing our knowledge
BOX 1-3 Lost at the Frontier: U.S. Science and Technology Policy Adrift A standard defense of U.S. academic science is that the university science system gives excellent training to graduate students and postdocs embarking on their careers. But an increasing number of young U.S. scientists are deciding not to go to graduate school in the “hard” (or physical) sciences. There has been a decline in the number of bachelor of engineering students who go on to graduate school. The number of M.D.s who go on to get their PhDs has been declining too. So while some leaders brag about our fine university system, young Americans are voting otherwise with their feet. The trends are different for different fields. Nonetheless, the curves go downward, even in the fields where total graduate enrollments are increasing as a result of the influx of foreign graduate students. There is some debate about the foreign students and their impact on the campus and the scientific workforce, but less attention is being paid to the alarming decline of U.S. citizens seeking advanced training in the physical sciences…. Clearly, if bright young Americans continue to be “turned off” university research, the consequences will be serious for the nation. —From D. Shapley and R. Roy. 1985. Lost at the Frontier: U.S. Science and Technology Policy Adrift. Philadelphia, PA: ISI Press. |
workforce as part of a larger plan to sustain our scientific and technological leadership. These workforce recommendations focused on improving K-12 STEM education as well as providing incentives to students to pursue S&E education at the undergraduate and graduate levels.3 However, the recommendations are insufficient: A national effort to sustain and strengthen our science and engineering workforce must also include a strategy for ensuring that we draw on the minds and talents of all Americans, including minorities who are underrepresented in science and engineering and currently embody an underused resource and a lost opportunity.
BROAD PARTICIPATION MATTERS
The nation has an opportunity to address simultaneously both our need for a strengthened STEM workforce and the need to respond to the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in that workforce. This report therefore describes demographic trends in the U.S. population and STEM education that lie metaphorically not only at the S&E crossroads but at the intersection of two quintessentially American stories:
BOX 1-4 The Context for Innovation and Competitiveness Policy The United States takes deserved pride in the vitality of its economy, which forms the foundations of our high quality of life, our national security, and our hope that our children and grandchildren will inherit ever greater opportunities. That vitality is derived in large part from the productivity of well-trained people and the steady stream of scientific and technical innovations they produce. Without high-quality, knowledge-intensive jobs and the innovative enterprises that lead to discovery and new technology, our economy will suffer and our people will face a lower standard of living. Economic studies conducted even before the information-technology revolution have shown that as much as 85 percent of measured growth in U.S. income per capita was due to technological change. Today, Americans are feeling the gradual and subtle effects of globalization that challenge the economic and strategic leadership that the United States has enjoyed since World War II. A substantial portion of our workforce finds itself in direct competition for jobs with lower-wage workers around the globe, and leading-edge scientific and engineering work is being accomplished in many parts of the world. Thanks to globalization, driven by modern communications and other advances, workers in virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, China, India, or dozens of other nations whose economies are growing. This has been aptly referred to as “the Death of Distance.” Having reviewed trends in the United States and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned that the scientific and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength. Although the U.S. economy is doing well today, current trends indicate that the United States may not fare as well in the future without government intervention. This nation must prepare with great urgency to preserve its strategic and economic security. Because other nations have, and probably will continue to have, the competitive advantage of a low wage structure, the United States must compete by optimizing its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology, and by sustaining the most fertile environment for new and revitalized industries and the well-paying jobs they bring. —From the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and National Institute of Medicine. 2007. Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. pp. 1-4. |
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The evolution of education in the United States and its role in preparing a workforce that can drive technological innovation and our ability to meet national goals, and
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The stories of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, and our nation’s native peoples—Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native
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Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders4—who are a growing share of the U.S. population.
A strategy to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering must play a central role in our overall approach to sustaining our capacity to conduct research and innovate. At least three reasons underscore the need for doing so: Our sources for the future S&E workforce are uncertain; the demographics of our domestic population are shifting dramatically; and diversity in S&E is a strength that benefits both diverse groups and the nation as a whole.
Sources of Talent
For many years, the nation has relied on an S&E workforce that has been predominantly male and overwhelmingly white and Asian. In the more recent past, as the proportion of our S&E workforce that is white and male has fluctuated, we have seen increases in the numbers of women and international students in these fields and careers. Unfortunately, many institutions have seen this as sufficient for meeting their diversity goals and have even misclassified some international students and faculty as underrepresented minorities. It should be noted that minority women have not fared as well as white women in the S&E workforce, but they have shown greater increases in degree production. In fact, in 2006, 26 percent of all employed scientists were women. White women represented 69 percent of that total, while minority women represented only 11 percent.
Trends in the participation of women have actually been mixed. In some fields, such as computer science, the participation of women has declined in recent years, and there remains the problem of low percentages of women in STEM faculty in research universities. However, in general, we have achieved greater opportunity for women in some—if not all—fields.
The real story is that of international students. Non-U.S. citizens, particularly those from China and India, have accounted for almost all growth in STEM doctorate awards and, in some engineering fields, have for some time comprised the majority of new doctorate awards. Indeed, temporary
residents accounted for more than half of the U.S. doctorates in engineering, computer science, and mathematics in 2006. We are coming to understand, then, that relying on the continued growth in the number of non-U.S. citizens in science and technology is an increasingly uncertain proposition, that it does not address our need for more STEM-trained U.S. citizens who are qualified for national security and defense industry positions, that the impending retirements in such fields as geosciences, mathematics, and physics must be a critical concern, and that we must look for other sources of S&E talent for the long run.5
For one thing, following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, changes in U.S. visa processing resulted in declines in the numbers of non-U.S. citizens applying for, gaining admission to, and enrolling in graduate study in the United States. Through a series of institutional surveys, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) found a substantial decline of 6 percent in first-time international graduate enrollment from 2003 to 2004 and a drop for that period of 3 percent in total graduate enrollment. The next year first-time enrollments increased by 1 percent, but overall enrollment remained down. In subsequent years, the graduate enrollment of international students has increased, but as of 2008, writes CGS, “the rebound in total international enrollment still has not been large enough to reverse the declines that many institutions reported in 2004.”6
In addition to these data on international enrollment levels, there is cause for concern about whether international students who earn doctorates here will seek to stay and participate in the U.S. science and engineering enterprise or choose to return home or to other parts of the world. An analysis of the percentage of non-U.S. citizen PhDs with temporary visas who earn their degrees from U.S. institutions and then remain in the United States and continue to work found mixed results. The 10-year stay rate in 2007 of those who earned PhDs in 1997 is higher than similarly observed previous 10-year stay rates. However, the five-year stay-rate in 2007 of those who earned PhDs in 2002 is lower.7 Perhaps more important than these trends, though, is understanding differences in stay rates by country of origin. For example, new doctorates from China, for now, remain in the United States at a very high and fairly stable level over time. Doctorates from India tend to stay at a very high rate but leave over time. Doctorates from Taiwan and South Korea have much lower stay rates and those who initially stay have
5 |
National Science Board. Science and Engineering Indicators. 2010. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. |
6 |
Council of Graduate Schools. 2008. Findings from the 2008 CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey, Phase III: Final Offers of Admission and Enrollment. |
7 |
Michael G. Finn. 2010. Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2007. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. See http://orise.orau.gov/sep/files/stay-rates-foreign-doctorate-recipients-2007.pdf (accessed February 16, 2010). |
a high propensity to leave over time. The key question going forward is whether the stay rates for new doctorates from China will continue as they have in the past or whether these doctorates will begin to return home, as China develops its own higher education sector. There is a very good chance that it will be the latter as China follows the pattern previously set by Taiwan and South Korea.
A Moving Target
If the uncertainty about the future participation of international students suggests a need to ensure that we draw on all demographic sources, the dramatic changes in the demographics of the domestic population suggest that the problem is all the more urgent because the groups that are most underrepresented are also the fastest growing in the population. As shown in Figure 1-1, underrepresented minorities make up 28 percent of the U.S. population but only about 9 percent of the science and engineering workforce. Meanwhile, as shown in Figure 1-2, the U.S. Census Bureau now projects that underrepresented minorities will account for about 45 percent of the U.S. population by the year 2050. So, without a change in course, the current gap between underrepresented minority presence in the population and underrepresented minority participation in S&E will only increase at a time when we most need to close it.
Diversity Is an Asset
Drawing more deeply on diverse groups within our population has benefits beyond meeting the needs for scientists and engineers. Diversity is both a resource for and strength of our society and economy. Scott Page, in The Difference (2007), argues that diverse groups are typically smarter and stronger than homogeneous groups when innovation is a critical goal, as it is now in our globally competitive environment.8 To increase diversity in a population, therefore, strengthens its activity contribution by increasing the number of perspectives and the range of knowledge brought to bear.
There are divergent views among researchers, economists, and others about the costs and benefits of racial and ethnic diversity. Following are examples of these arguments:
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Edwin S. Rubenstein and the National Policy Institute Staff in The Economic Costs of Racial and Cultural Diversity (2008):9 Cultural dif-
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ferences are often a source of social conflict and often act as a barrier to economic progress as well as personal freedom. When societies are multicultural, the ethnocentric differences of race, religion, ethnicity, and language often lead to enmity. Even if different groups live together peacefully, the lack of a common language and common norms reduces cooperation and increases the cost of economic transactions.
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European Commission in The Costs and Benefits of Diversity (2003):10 Companies that implement workforce diversity policies identify important benefits that strengthen long-term competitiveness and, in certain instances, also produce short and medium-term improvements in performance. Companies also face costs of legal compliance, cash costs for additional staff and training, opportunity costs, and business risks.
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Patrick Kelly in As America Becomes More Diverse: The Impact of State Higher Education Inequality (2005):11 Increased educational attainment results in higher personal income, a better-skilled and more adaptable
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workforce, fewer demands on social services, higher levels of community involvement, and better decisions regarding healthcare and personal finance. At a time when higher education is increasingly important, some visible race/ethnic groups are consistently in the “have not” category of our society. State policy makers must grasp the social and economic impacts of ignoring the problem.
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Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara in Participation in Heterogeneous Communities (2000):12 They found that, after controlling for many individual characteristics, participation in social activities is significantly lower in more unequal and in more racially or ethnically fragmented localities.
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Paul Collier in Ethnicity, Politics and Economic Performance (2000):13 Whether diversity affects overall economic growth depends upon the political environment. Diversity is highly damaging to growth in the context of limited political rights, but is not damaging in democracies.
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T. Kochan et al. in The Effects of Diversity on Business Performance (2002):14 Racial diversity has a positive effect on overall performance in companies that use diversity as a resource for innovation and learning. Further, the best performance outcomes occur when diversity is found across entire organizational units.
Several reports present arguments about the impact of diversity in higher education. In Diversity Works: The Emerging Picture of How Students Benefit,15 Daryl G. Smith (1997) concluded that diversity initiatives positively affect both minority and majority students on campus in terms of student attitudes toward racial issues, institutional satisfaction and academic growth. James A. Anderson makes the case in Driving Change Through Diversity and Globalization (2008)16 that the inclusion of diversity and globalization in disciplinary work contributes to the research agendas of individual faculty and their departments, aligns with scholarly values, and promotes such student learning goals as tolerance of ambiguity and paradox, critical thinking, and creativity.
One of the most widely quoted is the study (1999) by Patricia Gurin, professor of psychology and women’s study at the University of Michigan.
She presents compelling and comprehensive research that shows the following:17
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Structural diversity creates conditions that lead students to experience diversity in ways that would not occur in a more homogeneous student body.
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Students who had experienced the most diversity in classroom settings and in informal interactions with peers showed the greatest engagement in active thinking processes, growth in intellectual engagement and motivation, and growth in intellectual and academic skills.
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The results support the central role of higher education in helping students to become active citizens and participants in a pluralistic democracy. Students who experienced diversity in classroom settings and in informal interactions showed the most engagement in various forms of citizenship and the most engagement with people from different races/cultures.
A preponderance of research suggests that benefits outweigh the various objections to diversity raised in the literature. “Thus, the moral imperative for diversity in higher education is now united with social and economic necessity in a nation that, within a little more than one generation, will be without a racial or ethnic majority. The challenge is to prepare students from all races and backgrounds to work effectively in a decidedly more diverse workplace.”18
Education Is an Asset
Improving the education of our citizens—especially in science and engineering—has further benefits to society: (1) A citizenry better educated in science and engineering strengthens democracy and informed participation in a world in which STEM is more important than ever to policy; (2) Minority communities will be stronger with greater access to experts who understand science and engineering problems (e.g., water quality and toxic waste dumps) and policy choices for them; and (3) STEM-educated workers will be better able to perform in environments characterized by risk and complexity.
CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE
Indeed, citing the need to develop a strong and diverse workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, U.S. Senators
Edward Kennedy, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray, and Hillary Clinton, then of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, wrote to the president of the National Academy of Sciences requesting that the Academy undertake a study that would inform the U.S. Congress about ways to increase underrepresented minority participation in these fields. The U.S Congress later included this study as a mandate in the America COMPETES Act. (A copy of the letter is included in Appendix B.)
The Senators and the COMPETES Act both charged the study committee to explore the role of diversity in the STEM workforce and its value in keeping America innovative and competitive; analyze the rate of change and the challenges the nation currently faces in developing a strong and diverse workforce; and identify best practices and the characteristics of these practices that make them effective and sustainable. They further charged the study committee with addressing the following questions:
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What are the key social and institutional factors that shape decisions of minority students to commit to education and careers in the STEM fields? What programs have successfully influenced these factors to yield improved results?
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What are the specific barriers preventing greater minority student participation in the STEM fields? What programs have successfully minimized these barriers?
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What are the primary focus points for policy intervention to increase the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in America’s workforce in the future? Which programs have successfully implemented policies to improve recruitment and retention? Are they “pull” or “push” strategies? Overall, how effective have they been? By what criteria should they be judged?
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What programs are under way to increase diversity in the STEM fields? Which programs have been shown to be effective? Do they differ by gender within minority group? What factors make them more effective? How can they be expanded and improved in a sustainable way?
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What is the role of minority-serving institutions in the diversification of America’s workforce in these fields? How can that role be supported and strengthened?
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How can the public and private sectors more effectively assist minority students in their efforts to join America’s workforce in these fields?
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What should be the implementation strategy? The committee should develop a prioritized list of policy and funding action items with milestones and cost estimates that will lead to a science and engineering workforce that mirrors the nation’s diverse population.
INFORMATION GATHERING
To carry out this charge, the National Academies appointed a study committee in early 2008. This committee included individuals with expertise in K-12 and higher education, STEM education, STEM employment across sectors, diversity, public policy, and program evaluation. Moreover, committee members represent the range of higher education institutions, from community colleges to research universities. They also include representatives from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSIs), and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). (See Appendix C for committee member biographies.)
The committee gathered information throughout 2008 through expert testimony, a review of previous reports and the academic literature, and analysis of national data. During three committee meetings (see Appendix D for agendas) on March 10-11, June 11-12, and October 22-23, 2008, the committee heard from the following individuals:
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Charles M. Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering, on innovation and competitiveness policy and the findings and recommendations of the National Academies’ report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm.
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Representatives from the U.S. Congress, including U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes, staff from the Offices of U.S Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson and U.S. Representative Michael Honda, and staff from the House Diversity and Innovation Caucus.
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Federal policy and program officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Education.
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Officials from private foundations and programs, including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the UNCF/Gates Millennium Scholars Program, and the Leadership Alliance.
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Experts on the legal and labor market contexts for increasing participation, including Daryl Chubin, AAAS, on Standing Our Ground: A Guidebook for STEM Educators in the Post-Michigan Era, and labor economists Mark Regets, National Science Foundation, and Sharon Levin, University of Missouri.
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Experts on demographic trends in STEM fields, including Lisa Frehill, Commission of Professionals in Science and Technology.
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Stakeholder groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Defense Industry Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Action Council for
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Minorities in Engineering, and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science.
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Experts on diversity, mentoring, teacher preparation, K-12 STEM education programs, and minority participation in undergraduate and graduate education, including Shirley Malcom, AAAS.
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Officials from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs) on the role of MSIs in broadening participation in STEM fields.
The committee also heard from individuals involved in earlier reports focused on increasing the participation of minorities in STEM fields, including the following:
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Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development, Land of Plenty;
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National Science and Technology Council, Ensuring a Strong U.S. Scientific, Technical, and Engineering Workforce in the 21st Century;
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Building Engineering and Science Talent, A Bridge for All and What It Takes;
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Willie Pearson Jr., and Diane Martin, Broadening Participation Through a Comprehensive, Integrated System;
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National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Confronting the New American Dilemma: Underrepresented Minorities in Engineering;
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American Association for the Advancement of Science, In Pursuit of a Diverse Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Workforce: Recommended Research Priorities to Enhance Participation by Underrepresented Minorities and other reports; and
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National Research Council, Assessment of NIH Minority Research Training Programs and Understanding Interventions that Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers.
The committee synthesized this information as a foundation for this report and its findings and recommendations.
ORGANIZATION OF REPORT
This report is organized into three sections. The first section provides an introduction to the issues covered in the report. This chapter provides the context and rationale for the report, as well as a description of the charge to the committee and the committee process. The second chapter in the introductory section presents data to illustrate the dimensions of the problem along the educational pathway and in the science and engineering workforce. The second section of the report, through chapters on preparation, access and
motivation, affordability, and academic and social integration, outlines the key educational, social, and professional steps necessary for a student to grow into a scientist or engineer. The paths within the “pathway” or “pipeline” are varied, but elements can be identified to direct discussion of the steps necessary for increasing the participation and success of underrepresented minorities in STEM. The final section of the report consists of two chapters. The first of these chapters provides guiding principles for the development and implementation of policies and programs. The final chapter provides recommendations and a comprehensive list of implementation actions across educational stages and stakeholders. It also includes two priority actions focused on the committee’s near-term goal of increasing the persistence and completion of underrepresented minority undergraduates in STEM.