As the No. 3 city for the most tech job growth in the last decade, Houston is shaping up to be a hub of not only industry but STEM education.
Overall, the city saw a 24.1 percent jump in STEM careers from 2001 to 2013, according to a Praxis Strategy Group survey, a number that many educators in the area say they are aware of and impacts their work.
“I think the need for more STEM workers is both a local and national issue,” says Dr. Alexander Okwonna, dean of health and natural sciences at San Jacinto College, located in the Houston metro area. “Globally, for the United States to keep up with the rest of the world, we’re going to have to step up the number of student graduates, and to do that we’re going to need more women and minorities to come on board and go into STEM careers.”
STEM initiatives
Nationally, the number of STEM jobs has increased 30 percent since 2000, according to the U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index. To keep up with demand, administrators, faculty and staff created a group, the San Jacinto College STEM Council, to coordinate STEM efforts across the two-year college’s three campuses.
“There are three guiding principles that we are going by: recruit, retain and reward,” notes Okwonna.
A year and a half into the creation of the council, Dr. Ann Cartwright, a chemistry professor and council co-chair, says the council is doing everything it can “dream up” to streamline efforts for its mostly underserved minority student body.
