Diverse Issues in Higher Education
December 4, 2012
Experts Say More
Minority STEM Programs are Vital to National Growth
by Cherise Lesesne
The need to enhance minority
targeted STEM programs is not just on the radar for education administrators,
but also has been a priority for several government officials, especially
members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet. According to a recent report
released by the President’s Council of Advisory on Science and Technology
(PCAST), investing resources in secondary and postsecondary science education
could be a key ingredient for rebuilding a nation as technologically advanced
as China’s.
“Science and technology are
foundational to this nation and are of more than passing importance to the
American economy, which most measures suggest more than half of its growth is
due to science, technology and innovation,” said John Holdren, assistant to the
president for science and technology and co-chair of PCAST.
Since scientific and
technological innovations are critical contributors to the nation’s economic
growth, education for STEM programs is likewise seen as an imperative agenda
for a healthy economy. As a result, technology companies are creating
partnerships with research universities for the sole purpose of luring top
young engineers and scientists to their field and, in many cases, their
companies. In particular, recruiting top engineers from minority groups has
become a priority due to the demographic shift of a stronger represented
minority group.
According to Holdren, the
substantial number of minority and foreign students at American colleges is
plenty reason to make minorities a target market for STEM education programs.
As revealed in the report, the increase in foreign students at American
colleges makes up about 28 percent of U.S. graduates studying science or
engineering. The quarter of college, minority graduates pursuing scientific
fields, have become a “rich source of talent for the United States and its
industries and also a conduit for further global leveling of the scientific
playing field,” Holdren commented.
With countries like China
that have contributed many scientific discoveries to the U.S., the reliance on
international intelligence has become vital to the economy’s survival. Yet, the
same practice of relying heavily on other countries’ technological advances
also presents high stakes in regards to global competition. The worry among
many officials is that the U.S. is not creating enough around its own
scientific contributions. Hence, the demand for rebuilding a strong STEM
program within American colleges and secondary schools is an effort that will
ultimately create an unmatched group of valued workers, a group that could
re-instill the idea of global competition.
“A loss of global
competitiveness can be avoided by increasing the efficiency of U.S. researchers
and by positioning the Nation’s great research universities and National
Laboratories as central engines of innovation and geographical anchors of the
U.S. science and technology enterprise,” noted Eric Lander, president of the
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and co-chair of PCAST.
Lander continued to point
out, “An even worse outcome would be if other countries, acting in their
self-interests without U.S. leadership, make the same mistake. This could lead
to a zero-sum world in which no country invests in the long-term basic research
for the future, while all scramble to compete over the diminishing returns from
past investments.”
In achieving global
competition, the idea is restructuring an adequate educational system that has
immense resources in scientific and technological innovation. Already, American
colleges have started to implement global competitiveness by allocating
resources to augment STEM programs, particularly among minorities. Florida
International University (FIU), for instance, has created several programs for
STEM research among minorities. As the largest traditional institution to serve
a majority of minorities, the need for graduating students in science fields is
relatively stronger than in most schools.
FIU President Mark Rosenberg
claimed, “Our geography—we’re located in Miami—is our destiny.”
As a result of its location,
FIU has gained 61 percent of a Hispanic student body. The demand with many of
FIU’s minorities is a peer learning system, which Rosenberg summarizes as the
“learning assistant approach.” The program has helped to graduate several of
its minorities in science fields, as it nominated undergraduates to become
learning assistants.
“I’m going to recommend the
learning assistant approach because essentially its great peer based learning;
it creates a changed dynamic among the students that is going to be very
salutary in the long term for this country,” Rosenberg said.
Although, there are still
pressing issues in accommodating many of these minorities. The challenge for
serving Hispanic and Black students at FIU is in ensuring that they master such
difficult subject areas as mathematics. Among the Hispanic and Black student
body, many are first generation students with inadequate exposure to science
and mathematics. FIU’s minorities have had low passage rates among its math
courses. Yet, the 16 percent growth of both technical and scientific jobs will
begin to require mathematics, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The point is that, if we
don’t get underrepresented minorities involved, we’re not going to get where we
need to get,” Rosenberg remarked.
As STEM programs for
minorities have become heavily broadcast as a national agenda, American schools
have more of an urge to educate underrepresented groups in science-related
fields.
