Understanding Interventions That Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers Summary of a Workshop (2007) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Developing a Research Agenda
4 Developing a Research Agenda
Pages 38-54
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 38... ...
4 Developing a Research Agenda U nderrepresented minorities -- and all students -- must navi gate a series of experiences in the process of selecting career paths; a research agenda designed to understand which factors influence those decisions also will be complex. In such a circumstance, said National Institutes of Health (NIH)
|
From page 39... ...
The Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for example, brings promising minority students to the campus when they are in the 10th or 11th grade to show them what they could accomplish through hard work in high school. Another critical factor, according to Zerhouni, is the socioeconomic status of students. "I have seen terrifically qualified individuals who just could not afford the career in science that you would want them to follow," he said.
|
From page 40... ...
That parameter never shows up as explicitly as I would like to see it expressed." Less tangible but just as influential are the cultural factors involved in the development of a scientist. As Zerhouni related, "The one thing I learned when I came to Johns Hopkins was that it did not matter how good you were in math or physics or how good your grades were, you knew your success in science was going to depend enormously on your communication skills and your fitting in to the culture of science." To what extent do minority students fit in with predominantly majority groups, and how do subgroups form within research groups?
|
From page 41... ...
For example, the Institute of Leadership Excellence and Academic Development (I-LEAD) at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City is working with six Catholic schools in the Bronx and Harlem to identify students from low-income, underserved neighborhoods and steer them toward highly selective colleges and universities instead of less selective institutions.
|
From page 42... ...
Lent of the University of Maryland, College Park, "exposing students to folks who look like them and are just a little bit older and who have coped with the same environmental obstacles that the younger students are now facing can be extraordinarily helpful -- perhaps, in part, for reasons of neutralizing stereotype threat, of normalizing the experience, of saying, ‘hey, you deserve to be here.'" LaRuth C McAfee, executive director for education at the Center for Layered Polymeric Systems at Case Western Reserve University, described the Polymers Envoys programs, in which high school students from Cleveland public schools do research in university labs.
|
From page 43... ...
I think it is a huge problem." Undergraduate Education Workshop participants highlighted several programs at the undergraduate level in addition to the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, discussed above. They include the Biology Undergraduate Scholars Program at the University of California, Davis; programs supported by private organizations such as HHMI and the Alfred P
|
From page 44... ...
However, only 8 of the 20 top producers of biology black biomedical baccalaureates appear in the top 20." Further, Hispanics are earning their biology doctorates at top research universities while African Americans are earning their biology doctorates at research II institutions. Programs to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who hold faculty positions at top research institutions would be better informed by data on where practicing researchers obtained their degrees, Burgess suggested.
|
From page 45... ...
These pathways should be tracked more effectively, she said, as should the factors that cause pathways to differ. According to Michael Leibowitz, professor and associate dean at UMDNJ's Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, tracking students requires "hard work and creativity and considerable expense, but these things are not impossible.
|
From page 46... ...
But "at night, when I went to the graduate house, there were many more people who looked like me," she said. "It can't be just one person trying to do it all." McAfee described an activity where the Black Graduate Student Association at her graduate institution established a weekly research discussion: "Everyone sets goals for the next week, everyone gives a quick update on what they have been doing for the past week.
|
From page 47... ...
"We have to stop talking about research careers" in general, said McGee. We have to make "our questions and our terminology more precise than we have in the past." The issue of employment following graduate school raised the question of graduate education's goals: How should "success" be defined for a graduate student?
|
From page 48... ...
Such a life can be "brutal," he said. Researchers need to "lobby more to make this a better life, to make it a life where the PI doesn't work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and the graduate students and the postdocs watch this and say, ‘No way, I am not going to do this.'" Alyson Reed, executive director of the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA)
|
From page 49... ...
" In fact, one of the breakout discussions suggested that there might be researchable questions related to the development of postdocs and faculty or to identify the characteristics of faculty that might contribute to graduate student attrition. A different model would be to hire people into what Taylor termed pre-faculty appointments.
|
From page 50... ...
Reporting on a breakout discussion, NPA's Reed suggested that professional societies and other nonprofit organizations can collaborate with each other to establish a coordinated research agenda and common tools for research. For example, many professional societies support similar interventions, such as travel award programs, fellowship programs, mentoring interactions at meetings, and so on.
|
From page 51... ...
An independent evaluation by the Urban Institute showed that underrepresented minorities participating in the program were just as likely to pursue further course work in STEM as non-minority students. The LSAMP is connected to many others at NSF and will now provide support for educational research projects on the baccalaureate attainment of underrepresented minorities. Jordan also pointed out the contributions that private philanthropies can make: "One of the things that I can do by directing the science education center at Howard Hughes is to engage people in these types of discussions to come there and have these kinds of interactions." In this way, she said, HHMI can "partner with not just NIH, but also with NSF and the Sloan Foundation, and then with individuals out there in the field who are doing these kinds of things, and see if we can't move this effort forward on a more national level." Building the Research Community Educational institutions are not very good at learning from each other, said Chubin.
|
From page 52... ...
Dissemination opportunities also extend well beyond the printed page. An electronic mailing list of past and current awardees from programs that support research into educational interventions would be a way for the community to exchange information.
|
From page 53... ...
Interdisciplinary teams that are formed will not only lead to more effective research projects, but also greater opportunities for publication and dissemination. McAfee also encouraged making use of existing networks; for example, she used the Science Diversity Center in her research, which was established as a place to identify minority-serving institutions that have received federal funding and serves as way to locate institutions with particular facilities and programs. According to Taylor, "Many of us .
|
Key Terms
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.