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Oct. 6
Making a Case for Diversity in STEM Fields
When we were in college some 40 years ago, neither of us ever had an African-American or Latino professor. Unfortunately, even today many students at major American research universities have the same experience. Departments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — the STEM fields — are typically the least diverse. Not only is that situation dismaying for those of us who lived through the civil rights movement, but it is also a big policy problem for our country.
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At a time when STEM fields are increasingly important to our national security, health, and competitiveness we are neither supporting the research nor producing the diverse pool of scientists and engineers we need to fuel our future.
Programs to broaden the pool of STEM students are being scrutinized, and some have been eliminated. Beyond the obvious logic of numbers — the more people in a field, the more likely it is that talented practitioners will appear — research suggests that a diversity of perspectives enriches science and makes engineering more responsive to a global pool of clients. For example, Anthony Lising Antonio, et al. reported on a study of college-student discussion groups in an August 2004 issue of Psychological Science. According to the research, students working in a more diverse group setting were influenced by the different perspectives of minority participants and demonstrated enhanced complex thought processes as a result.
This is especially relevant in the STEM fields, where students are often required to work collaboratively and where thinking about a problem in new and different ways is central to developing solutions. In a friend-of-the-court brief pertaining to the Supreme Court cases on affirmative action at the University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, DuPont, IBM, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering submitted an argument documenting that “the importance of diversity is heightened in the fields of science and engineering.”
As an engine of our economy, the STEM disciplines and the diversity of that workforce should give us great pause. Although only 5 percent of American workers were employed in STEM occupations as of 2006, their impact on the national and global economies is disproportionately large.
In both academe and the workforce, those fields look the least like America, with much smaller proportions of women, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos. Although the overall student population has become more diverse, at the undergraduate level members of these minority groups are underrepresented among all STEM majors, with women underrepresented in many STEM fields. At the graduate level, there is an additional problem: a declining percentage of U.S. citizens. In many departments of physics, computer science, and engineering, it is difficult to find a graduate student who is a U.S. citizen. Across the STEM fields, the situation for faculty members is even more dire.
To achieve better representation in our colleges’ STEM departments, we must deal with three issues.
First, we must clearly articulate the educational case for diversity, showing how students and society benefit from it. After that, we can determine how best to reach diversity: What policies should be altered, what practices endorsed, what structural changes made, and what resources committed? In biomedical research, for instance, we must not assume that whites and males are typical of all patients and develop treatments only for them; when scientists who are not white males are present, that assumption is more likely to be challenged.
Second, we need to think more holistically about diversity in STEM, including the need for everyone on our campuses — undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty and staff members — to be exposed to diverse ideas and worldviews. For example, in the high-tech industry, the composition of work teams now mirrors the consumer market for company products. No such practices pervade STEM units on campus, although research in many areas ultimately impacts consumers, and many students and faculty will someday operate in the private sector. To reach this goal, we may need to re-examine functions like admissions, financial aid, and faculty recruitment and advancement. What are the criteria by which decisions are made in each case? By reassigning accountability for those functions to a central office, promising and creative practices can be shared throughout the institution, with rewards for STEM units that are diversifying. A campus-wide repository of data, as well as college-specific tools, for monitoring and managing levels of diversity, is essential. Innovative examples can be found in many universities — Harvard University on faculty searches, the University of California at Berkeley on undergraduate support, Georgia Tech on promotion and tenure — which honor excellence while seeking to diversify participation in STEM education and careers.
Third, we must acknowledge that stereotypes still matter, and that they affect perceptions of quality and expectations for performance — regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. Studies show that humans use irrelevant external cues and group attributes in our judgments of people — noting, for example, the race or ethnicity of a doctor before evaluating the extent of her medical knowledge. Assuming that diversity on a campus is just the result of affirmative action or special pleading reveals a different kind of bias. The Supreme Court has ruled that although colleges can consider race/ethnicity as one factor in developing policies such considerations may not carry undue weight relative to other aspects of individual qualifications. Opponents of affirmative-action programs can always claim that their emphasis on group characteristics — race and sex — override the required focus on individual characteristics. It seems illogical to operate special programs for the numerical majority — women and members of minority groups. But special programs remain a valuable source of “intelligence” in guiding the transition to institution-wide approaches. Only leaders, including presidents and trustees, can begin institutional transformation in support of diversity. Though such broad change needs to start at the top, it must also be embraced and carried out at all levels.
So-called race-neutral programs — created in response to new laws that undercut the use of affirmative action or consider socio-economic status as a proxy for race and ethnicity — are increasingly advocated by the federal government. But they cannot be the only policy tool used to right that moral wrong. Instead, we must move toward strategies to transform an entire institution — to serve the needs of all students and faculty members, regardless of discipline, not just those with certain characteristics. Even those who decry affirmative action should applaud an institution-wide approach that gives students what they need to succeed. Yet, this is not the same as providing “equal” treatment.
Judicial retreat on diversity in primary and secondary education is making it more difficult to diversify institutions of higher education. For example, in spring 2007 the Supreme Court struck down voluntary local strategies to desegregate schools in Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky. The rulings asserted that American society is color blind and the playing field is level — assertions that are both naïve and self-deceptive.
Americans born with the “right” sex, race, or social class still receive advantages at birth. And residence patterns can compound those advantages, as some public schools have the money to buy new technology and hire seasoned educators while others do not. Data from the College Board show that SAT scores are closely linked with zip codes. In the words of Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, “At virtually every level, education in America tends to perpetuate rather than compensate for existing inequalities.” She notes, “It takes about five generations for the advantages and disadvantages of family background to die out in the United States.”
Meanwhile, the fact remains that the United States is already importing talent and outsourcing technical jobs. Although that may make sense for our society in the short run, it is risky policy in the long run. Sooner or later, a white male science, engineering, or medical-school graduate will sue his alma mater — not because he was denied admission to a special program, but because his education in a homogeneous environment left him ill equipped to function in his chosen career. His lack of cultural competence will have impaired his contributions to the productivity of a diverse team, to satisfy a diverse client market, or to treat a diverse group of patients.
Let us not deceive ourselves. The legacy of Brown v. Board of Education may be in danger in the courts, and thus race-based affirmative action may no longer represent a viable national strategy for providing educational opportunity to all Americans. But our colleges and universities have an obligation to teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to a racially and ethnically diverse group of U.S. citizens — for our own good.
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Comments
I’m as confused as Confused. One of the authors’ rationales for diversity is a “global pool of clients,” but then they argue that our STEM fields are TOO global—not enough US citizens.
They then raise the specter of a white male student suing because his education environment in STEM was too homogeneous. Your average STEM lab may be many things, but homogeneous isn’t the term that leaps to mind. It’s diverse, just not the kind of diversity that the authors want. What I’d like to hear from them is why having ots of international students and Asian-Americans doesn’t count as diversity.
Dave Stone, at 9:15 am EDT on October 6, 2008
Perhaps instead of saying there is lack the reason for a lack of diversity should be investigated. As a STEM grad student I am often amazed how much more help and information international students are given the domestic students both before they arrive on campus (ie finding housing, financial aid, and using university resources). Undergraduates often express a sense of frustration that while they are in what is seen by their peers as a harder field they get less help from there “foreign profs who can’t speak english".
some jerky grad student, at 9:35 am EDT on October 6, 2008
My program has students from all over this country and from many others. These are people who have a dizzying array of political and religious beliefs, who have come from public and private institutions that are large and small, and who perform research at a top level in an unbelievably broad number of topics. The authors might dress up the one-dimensional ideas in this editorial about what diversity really means, but why not just cut out the middle man? Everything they really wanted to say is in the first and last paragraph.
Engineering Grad Student, at 9:45 am EDT on October 6, 2008
I’m all for casting a wide net, so that everyone knows about the opportunities in the STEM area. I’m all for encouraging a wide range of experiences and perspectives among those who go into this area. I’m all for providing resources to those who lack them to pursue their opportunities here.
What I’m against, though—and what is illogical and illegal—is using skin color and national origin as a proxy for not knowing about opportunities, or thinking a particular way or having a particular background, or lacking resources. THAT is stereotyping and THAT is illegal.
This is all so obvious that I cannot help but suspect that the principal motivation here is not better education but politically correct numbers.
Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel at Ctr for Equal Opportunity, at 10:15 am EDT on October 6, 2008
STEM fields
Count me as confused also. Is diversity only defined by measuring participation by african-americans?
Seriously, I got a sickening, depressing feeling reading this article. It is depressing knowing this attitude and definition of ‘diversity’ permeates throughout the higher ed community.
I am sure that I am less educated than these authors, but I consider myself color blind. Why aren’t they? It seems higher ed should strive to be color blind, not to institutionalize racial preferences.
Jerry in LA, at 10:40 am EDT on October 6, 2008
How about finding jobs for all the unemployed PhDs already out there instead of trying to recruit more people of whatever color or nationality. Stop perpetuating the “shortage of scientists” scam.
unemployed science phd, at 11:11 am EDT on October 6, 2008
Hogwash!
This is such nonsense it’s mind boggling. I challenge anyone to find a cluster of academic departments that are more diverse than those of STEM.
Oh I see, Mr. Chubin and Ms. Malcom, we’re not talking about diversity here, are we? ... we’re talking about YOUR kind of diversity.
I identified the following URLs almost at random. I mean you can close your eyes, point a finger at a list of universities in this fair land, pick a STEM department at random from that university, look at the faculty (or students) in that department, and shazam! ... you’ve got one that makes my point. And don’t just look at the names ... dig a little deeper and see where these folks got their undergraduate degrees.
http://www.business.uconn.edu/cms/p204
http://www.ee.ucla.edu/Faculty-regular.htm
http://www.bus.umich.edu/Academics/Departments/Finance/Faculty.htm
https://me-web2.engin.umich.edu/zope/pubdir/currentindex
http://www.eecs.ucf.edu/people/faculty_professors.php
http://www-stat.ucdavis.edu/people/faculty
http://web.eecs.ucf.edu/FacultyStaff/Faculty/tabid/66/Default.aspx
Now that I see that you’re not talking about diversity, but only the inclusion of more African-American and Hispanic students and faculty in the STEM fields, here’s the solution to YOUR problem ... and by the way, it’s the only solution.
Step 1: Get yourself a ton of money ... and I mean a lot.
Step 2: Create a non-profit, non-government corporation that will put that money into the hands of 18-year-old African-American and Hispanic students who are eager to pursue undergraduate degrees in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. ... and who understand that certain standards must be met in order to keep the funds flowing. Make sure the board of directors of your corporation consists of very (scientifically) knowledgeable, very ethical individuals.
Step 3: If there are no such 18-year-olds (or if there are very few of them), institute another such program for African-American and Hispanic 14- and 15-year-olds.
Step 4: Oh yes, your non-profit had better set up a division that does nothing but provide support for those who are admitted to the program (and are recipients of the funds), because not very many will be coming out of American high schools with backgrounds that will be highly correlated with academic success.
Step5: Find another ton of money ... and make it available to the successful graduates of the undergraduate program (and others) who are eager to study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. at the Ph.D. level ... and who understand that certain standards must be met in order to keep the funds coming.
That will do it. I’m an optimist, so I conjecture that Chubin-Malcom diversity in the STEM fields will be just what the doctors ordered ... say in about 12-20 years. On the other hand, we could continue to define and implement silly programs on the margin of the problem (see ...
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/10/06/chubin)
and, according to Manley’s Fifty-Year Principle, everything will work out on its own in X years, where X is a normally distributed random variable with mean 50 and standard deviation 2.
P.S. Oh, you think my program will be unfair to pathetic White guys who have better “credentials but don’t have access to the funds. Big deal! This corporation is non-profit and non-government. Start your own non-profit for us White guys.
Frizbane Manley, at 12:20 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
A perfect example of why university admissions is to important to be left up to academics.
Max, at 1:00 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
conflated issues
Many commenters (and to some extent the authors of the article) are conflating the global diversity of peoples and the lack of correspondence between Americans in STEM and the American population at large. These are both important but worth teasing apart for separate scrutiny. If you can try to read it with an open mind, you might want to look at this article by Richard Tapia: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i05/05b03401.htm
Scott, conflated issues, at 1:25 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
John Adams Had this situation predicted hundreds of years ago:
I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities (My add — today, translation, science, engineering, mathematics), so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.
Perhaps we have come full circle and it’s time to study war and politics again?
But not enough of our children—of whatever stripe—raised by the Poets, artists, and business people can do the basic math to move ahead.
And that won’t change in this generation.
Eric Gates, Sr. Sales Consultant at ALEKS, at 1:25 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
For a splendid argument against affirmative action programs see:
In Defense of Elitism by William A. Henry
Mary Whitton, at 3:00 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
This is xenophobic nonsense. As an Indian national who went to grad school in the US, I am highly offended by this rubbish. If diversity is the real criterion, then foreign students offer far more diversity than domestic students of any ethnicity ever could — precisely because they come from a wide range of countries and cultures. In a globalizing world, THAT is what the authors’ hypothetical white male American student wants — to interact with students from China, Korea, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Ghana, Russia, etc. In the workplace of tomorrow, THAT is what he will need. And ultimately the foreign students are winning spots ahead of domestic students in spite of the odds being stacked up against them — they aren’t eligible for Federally funded Fellowships (including the plethira of diversity fellowships already available), have to face all kinds of visa and immigration hassles, can’t work offcampus as easily, etc etc. BUT they are still displacing American students, white and non-white alike, because they are smarter and more driven. And since when do Asians not equal diversity? There are plenty of Asians in STEM fields. In fact, at universities such as Berkeley, doing away with affirmative action has not reduced diversity, it has actually increased it — the number of white students didn’t increase, but the number of Asian students did. Are you seriously going to suggest that Asians, who represent a range of millenia old cultures, speak a range of different languages, etc, are not the most culturally diverse group in America? I say, if you really want more diversity, abolish all nationality(citizenship)-specific discrimination, and let meritocracy work its magic. You may well find your graduate students will include no Americans at all, and, over time, those same students will become your faculty — a faculty of first generation immigrants. But diversity will certainly not be a problem.
Karan Vaswani, at 5:30 pm EDT on October 6, 2008
Missing the point
Argue all you want about the definition of diversity in higher education or whether diversity on a campus is satisfied by the presence of international students, but the fact remains that U.S. citizens who are minorities are seriously UNDER-represented in the STEM fields. So, let’s quit arguing (and trying to ease the collective conscience) and do something about it. For me, anyway, that is the point of this article.
Cathee J Phillips, at 4:55 pm EDT on October 7, 2008
Diversity is meaningless
As an Engineering professor, your argument is not seen in my classes. Sometimes the best student is a black female; sometimes a white male, often an asian student. I don’t care; I grade them all the same. My wife is a Math major and a Computer Scientist. My girls are a Chemistry grad student and a Mechanical Engineering Senior. Lots of STEM in our family. Might be genetic. Oh, and the Engineering daughter has a 3.97 GPA, while being a 4 time year round varsity athlete in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. Some races and sexes do better at some things (basketball, football, swimming?), some at others (math, reading, soccer?). What is the big deal?
Thomas, Professer of Engineering at University of Dayton, at 4:55 pm EDT on October 7, 2008
Response To Cathee J Phillips ...
Ms. Phillips reminds me of a certain presidential candidate who is eager to get on with the solution to the problem without first formulating a clear definition of what the problem is.
In my post above – and granted I’m a bit of a smart-ass – I tried to make it clear that Chubin and Malcom are not talking about diversity – there’s more diversity in the STEM disciplines than in practically any other cluster of academic disciplines (check out my data and read Karan Vaswani’s comment) – they’re talking about the fact that practically all African-American and Hispanic students, not to mention the overwhelming majority of intellectually incurious Caucasian students, are simply not turned on by mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. Unless I’m mistaken, that little bit of clarity of the situation is much more than “arguing,” and recognizing it surely enables us to focus our attention on root causes without having to resort to faith that there is a problem to begin with and then having to live with some nebulous notion of what the problem is. The C-M objective is not to create diversity; THEIR objective is to increase the number of African-Americans and Hispanics who are making their careers in the STEM disciplines.
But I didn’t stop with cleaning up Chubin’s and Malcom’s vocabulary, I suggested what I claimed to be the ONLY solution to THEIR problem. And why am I so sure of that? For starters, the phenomenon is soooo “old hat” ... even to the extent that I’m a bit surprised IHE printed the essay. We have known all about it for at least a decade, and during that decade, and despite more than a few “solutions” of the sort extolled by C-M, the situation has gotten much, much worse.
If what Chubin and Malcom think is a problem is actually a problem, then nothing short of my solution will even come close to having an impact on it.
Frizbane Manley, at 8:45 pm EDT on October 7, 2008
Frizbane Manley said:they’re talking about the fact that practically all African-American and Hispanic students, not to mention the overwhelming majority of intellectually incurious Caucasian students, are simply not turned on by mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc.
This is incorrect, or not a fact. We don’t even know whether these students are “simply not turned on” by these fields, because they leak out of the educational pipeline into these fields, often before they get to college. We also know that retention rates for women and under-represented minorities are worse both during undergrad and graduate school (and after grad school). I don’t think this is due to blatant discrimination any more, but “not turned on” is not an explanation.
I don’t know whether anything the authors say will help address this issue, but jumping up and down about how white men or non-US citizens are being unfairly blamed is definitely not going to address the issue. The non-US component of STEM studentry is very valuable (and yes it is incredibly diverse) but as a long term goal, it is also wise for the US not to solely rely on always being able to drain other countries’ talent.
Fields that fail to draw students from a large part of the population (for example, women, or Hispanic/Latino descent) have a problem simply because they run the risk of losing support from the public or looking like enclaves.
Assistant Research Cynic, Enormous State University, at 4:50 am EDT on October 8, 2008
Response To Assistant Research Cynic
First, I apologize for not being more precise when I wrote ...
“... [C and M are] talking about the fact that practically all African-American and Hispanic students, not to mention the overwhelming majority of intellectually incurious Caucasian students [in the U.S.], are simply not turned on by mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc.”
When I wrote that, I erroneously assumed the reader (1) would check out my first post (I suggested as much) and (2) would understand that I believe the conditions driving the phenomenon are well in place for 18-year-olds and are probably in place for 14 and 15 year olds. Indeed, I wrote ...
“Step 3: If there are no such 18-year-olds (or if there are very few of them), institute another such program for African-American and Hispanic 14- and 15-year-olds.”
In truth, I believe the processes responsible for this phenomenon are cast long before that. I think the culture for learning that these youngsters experience – at home, at school, and out of school with their peers – is so powerful that the older they get, the further they are from an adequate knowledge of the STEM disciplines, the more they are “turned off” by the content of the disciplines, and the more difficult it is for them to either learn very much about mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. or develop an affection for those exciting areas of knowledge.
Ideally, we should address the issue at that level (5- and 6-year-olds) and solve the problem – such as it is – in a bottom-up manner. I imagine that is very impractical because it would be very expensive, it would take a long time, and, frankly, I don’t think we command the pedagogical expertise to pull it off ... else we would have already have done it. Thus – as you can tell from my five-step recommendation – we should employ a top-down strategy by providing performance-based financial incentives and meaningful support structures for African-American and Hispanic students who can be induced to make their careers in the STEM disciplines. Add to that (1) we may well have to start with 14- and 15-year-olds, (2) we should not expect to see significant results in less than 12-20 years, (3) we should welcome foreign students into our STEM programs of study even if it is their intention to stay here in the U.S., and (4) we should quit framing these objectives in the vocabulary of achieving diversity (whatever that means).
Have I conducted studies of the phenomenon? Absolutely not. But I have been teaching mathematics, statistics, social methodology, management science, and operations research for almost fifty years, and for at least two decades I have been taking applications of the STEM disciplines to the American manufacturing, assembly, and service-delivery communities. The accumulation of my very, very extensive – if non-random and anecdotal – data completely supports the prejudices I expressed above.
Frizbane Manley, at 11:01 am EDT on October 8, 2008
Proud to be unsystematic?
Why is it that certain topics always inspire people to stand up and proudly proclaim:
“Have I conducted studies of the phenomenon? Absolutely not.“
as if this is a virtue?
Scott, at 1:55 pm EDT on October 8, 2008
Bad Guess Scott ...
Well, Scott, you completely misinterpreted my intention ... you were not even close. I considered “Have I conducted studies of the phenomenon? Absolutely not.“ to be an admission; not a boast. Indeed, and although you apparently have some experience with “... certain topics [that] always inspire people to stand up and proudly proclaim ...,” no one in my circle of friends and colleagues would ever boast about not having data relevant to the question at hand. I suppose I didn’t elaborate on my comment because I couldn’t possibly imagine anyone interpreting my remark as a boast ... as you did. Whew!
I would love to have data that addresses this issue, but ...
1. I can’t imagine any foundation or government agency being eager to fund such a study, especially in light of competing opportunities to make research investments that are likely to increase our understanding of educational processes and then improve them.
2. On more than a few occasions I will read the report of a research activity – often one that was not very well done – scratch my head and ask, “Who in God’s name couldn’t have answered those questions without spending a dime to design a study, collect data, do a little statistical analysis, and write a report.” I think this phenomenon fits perfectly into that category.
In this case, I’m certain you could assemble a medium-sized committee of thoughtful, experienced faculty from the STEM disciplines – screen them for their knowledge of social issues and pedagogical expertise – give them two afternoons and a little time between their meetings to write a report and a day or so after their second meeting to write and sign off on the final, revised report, and you will have a much more accurate and enlightened “analysis” of the phenomenon than you would get from a data-based, statistically enhanced study ... and at a fraction of the cost.
What would a formal study find?
1. There is a negative “imbalance” of African-American and Hispanic high school students who take four years of mathematics and at least three years of science.
2. There is a negative “imbalance” of African-American and Hispanic high school students who participate in science fairs and intercollegiate mathematics competitions.
3. Whatever measures of middle and high school mathematics or science achievement you employ, on the average, students with an Asian heritage outperform Caucasian students who will outperform African-American and Hispanic students ... and the higher the grade-level, the greater the disparity will be.
4. There is a negative “imbalance” of African-American and Hispanic students enrolled in undergraduate STEM disciplines.
5. By the time the vast majority of youngsters start thinking about higher education, they will have ceased consideration of careers that require studying any of the STEM disciplines. Business majors, for example – including MBAs – think of their required statistics and management science courses as obstacles they must hurdle so they “never have to think of that stuff again.”
6. There is a negative “imbalance” of African-American and Hispanic Ph.D. students in STEM disciplines.
7. There is a negative “imbalance” of African-American and Hispanic college and university faculty in STEM disciplines ... and the proportion of American Caucasian faculty has been declining during the past decade.
8. And if you’re curious about why foreign students studying any of the STEM disciplines in U.S. colleges and universities are, on average, higher achievers than African-American, Hispanic, and an enormous number of American Caucasian students, all you have to do is examine the cultures for learning in which these youngsters grew up. Oh yes, I should mention that hardly any of the underachieving (or never-got-there-to-begin-with) American Caucasian students are willing to embrace an alternative culture for learning even when evidence of the pay-off for doing so is all about them.
Want me to go on?
P.S. You all have my apology ... in retrospect I can’t believe I invested so much time and energy on a topic I’m not even certain is important. Whew!
Frizbane Manley, at 4:35 pm EDT on October 8, 2008
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“At the graduate level, there is an additional problem: a declining percentage of U.S. citizens. In many departments of physics, computer science, and engineering, it is difficult to find a graduate student who is a U.S. citizen. Across the STEM fields, the situation for faculty members is even more dire.”
A short definition of political correctness might be ‘white men are bad, everyone else is good’. Now despite the ostensible goodies showered on white men who are U.S. citizens it turns out that they are difficult to find in many physics, computer science, and engineering graduate programs and the situation is even worse among faculty members. Explanation please?
Confused, at 8:30 am EDT on October 6, 2008