Institutions that produce the most Latino graduates in the STEM fields were singled out for recognition Thursday in a report hailed as a guide for other colleges and universities that are looking to achieve similar results.
“The message here is we need to use this report as evidence to drive our practices,” said Laird Kramer, founding director of the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University.
Kramer was referring to “Finding Your Workforce: The Top 25 Institutions Graduating Latinos in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by Academic Level – 2009-10.”
The report was produced by Excelencia in Education, a D.C.-based policy and analysis organization that focuses on issues of Hispanic success in higher education.
Laird’s university is one of the dozens of institutions cited in the report for awarding outstanding numbers of degrees to Latinos in STEM fields.
For instance, 68 percent of FIU’s bachelor’s degrees in biological/biomedical sciences were awarded to Latinos. The figures for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in physical sciences were 72, 42 and 25 percent, respectively. Sixty-two percent of its bachelor’s degrees in computer sciences went to Latinos as did 36 percent of its master’s degrees in the field. In engineering, 63 percent of its bachelor’s degrees went to Latinos, as did 4 percent of its master’s degrees and 17 percent of its doctorate degrees in engineering. Ninety-one percent of its bachelor’s degrees in mathematics went to Hispanics.
The Hispanic population at FIU is 59.6 percent.
