Addressing Diversity in STEM Education: Authenticity and Integration
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Addressing Diversity in STEM Education: Authenticity and Integration Fiona M. Goodchild and Maria O. Aguirre California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105, U.S.A. ABSTRACT This talk will reflect on the challenges of designing educational opportunities that broaden diversity in the ranks of future scientists and engineers. The speaker, who is Education Director at the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will report on the design and evaluation of a program that integrates academic, career and social components to engage a community of undergraduates, graduate mentors and research faculty at UCSB. The program builds on key practices such as academic mentorship, community networking and early undergraduate research. Evaluation of this program, Expanding Pathways to Science, Engineering and Mathematics (EPSEM) indicates that it has been successful in recruiting and retaining students from under-represented (URM) groups into science, technology, engineering and math disciplines (STEM disciplines). INTRODUCTION Long-term investment in diversifying the STEM academic and professional ranks has had mixed results at all levels of the educational system. Female enrollment in higher education increased to the point that in 2001 women earned over half of the undergraduate degrees in science and engineering (Lowell and Hartzman, 2007). Women have increased their participation in STEM Ph.D. programs, reaching parity level (49%) in the Biological Sciences, but are still less than 20% of successful candidates in Engineering disciplines (NSF, 2005). Though this improvement is not yet reflected in the number of women at the faculty level, there is movement from 7.1% of faculty at Carnegie Research Universities in 1973 to 29.1%, thirty years later in 2003 (NSF, 2006). In the case of underrepresented students, the picture is less promising. Current data reinforces that the gap in immediate postsecondary enrollment rates between high school graduates from high- and low-income families has persisted from 1973 to 2001 (2007). Approximate figures for undergraduate (15%), masters (11%), or doctorate level (7%) indicate room for improvement to reach the parity level of 32% for 18-24 year-olds. Moreover, URM faculty represent only 6.8% of Science and Engineering faculty at Carnegie Research Universities (2009, CPST). Recent reports (NSF, 2008) acknowledge that it has been difficult to evaluate the impact of the investment in broadening diversity. Programs that target specific URM populations have not been well documented to track subsequent progress of participants. Current preference is to design projects that integrate a wider spectrum of students and set more realistic goals for student achievement and summative evaluation (NSF, 2005). This paper presents an alternative model for broadening diversity at the undergraduate level, building on the results of programs that stress the value of academic mentorship, community networking, ear
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