Providing early research experiences and creating supportive campus environments are among the promising and intentional strategies outlined in a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine focused on the impact and role of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) in producing graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
The academy’s report “Minority-Serving Institutions: America’s Underutilized Resource for Strengthening the STEM Workforce” reaffirms the relevance of MSIs and notes an urgent need to invest in the institutions to not only graduate and prepare MSI students for in-demand STEM careers, but also to sustain and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity, global competitiveness and national security, according to committee members sponsoring the report.
“This country can’t strengthen the STEM pipeline and bring more people into it without engaging the institutions where the students actually are,” said Dr. Kent McGuire, co-chair of the Committee on Closing the Equity Gap: Securing Our STEM Education and Workforce Readiness Infrastructure in the Nation’s Minority-Serving Institutions. “The conversation isn’t about, ‘Well, we can’t work with these schools because they don’t have this or they don’t have that.’ The conversation has to be, ‘We won’t actually be competitive internationally if we don’t help these schools do well what it is they do.’”
McGuire, who is also program director of education at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, added that, among other things, the report speaks to the variation among MSIs in how they serve students and also the challenges they face collectively and individually. America’s nearly 700 two- and four-year MSIs include historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding or lack of understanding from many different stakeholders that we’re trying to reach with this report including policymakers, including institutional leadership, including individuals at the state level,” said Dr. Lorelle Espinosa, co-chair of the committee and vice president for research at the American Council on Education. “We’re trying to speak to a number of different stakeholders about the importance and the relevance and the need to pay strict attention to the MSI sector in terms of investment.”
MSIs currently educate roughly 30 percent of U.S. undergraduates, the report said, and produce one-fifth of the country’s STEM bachelor’s degrees. HBCUs, particularly, produce more African-American graduates in STEM than all Ivy League institutions combined.
Seven evidence-based recommendations for strengthening MSIs’ capacity to provide quality STEM education and workforce preparation for their students emerged from the committee’s analysis of available research and literature, site visits to nine MSIs and from public forums with institutional leaders, program and department heads, faculty, students and other stakeholders.
