WASHINGTON, D.C. – To diversify the pool of America’s STEM field graduates, faculty members and administrators should reexamine their teaching practices and assume a posture where they expect underrepresented minority students to graduate rather than fail.
That was one of the major institutional changes recommended Wednesday at a panel discussion titled “Bridging the Gap: STEM Diversity and U.S. Higher Education, Recruiting, Retaining and Reinvigorating College STEM Programs.”
Panelists heavily criticized institutions that adopt practices meant to “weed out” students from the STEM fields.
Dr. S. James Gates, a physics professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Working Group on Undergraduate STEM Education, said colleges and universities should take an approach more in line with the military’s approach of “we will not leave our people behind.”
“If we can get that inculcated in our institutions more broadly, I think it will make an enormous difference,” Gates said.
Dr. Mary Frank Fox, co-director of the Center for the Study of Women, Science & Technology at Georgia Institute of Technology, also took aim at the “weed-them-out” approach.
“That is not a hospitable climate for students,” Fox said. “Let’s teach students to move along rather than have them sink or swim.”
