Doctoral Education and the Faculty of the Future

8. Minority Students in Science and Math

8 Minority Students in Science and Math What Universities Still Do Not Understand about Race in America Richard Tapia and Cynthia Johnson Why do so few Hispanics and African Americans enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, which are essential to the economic and social health of the nation? Simply put, the educational system grows increasingly unresponsive to America’s Hispanic and black populations as the degree stakes go up. Borrowing the pipeline analogy, the STEM faculty pipeline is just the last, smallest-diameter section of a system that eliminates large numbers of Hispanic and black students all along the way while providing little support to those who try to stay the course. Some universities are beginning to complain not only of a shortage of candidates for faculty positions in the sciences and engineering but also of a shortfall of graduate students, a situation mirrored in industry, where the demands for a technically skilled workforce are increasingly difficult to meet. With their strong market orientation, business and industry are asking for a diverse workforce to meet the needs of a diverse population; the university case for diversity is less straightforward, to say the least. Among other things, universities work for diversity so that students study in an environment that prepares them for life after graduation. But universities are academic institutions, with an increasingly strong orientation toward research. They want strong students with a good academic foundation. When it comes to admissions, university STEM 124 Doctoral Education and the Faculty of the Future faculty still strongly favor rank-ordering systems of students based on test scores and tend to rate underrepresented minority candidates below white men in ability and potential. Women have made considerable inroads, but their situation is only marginally better than that of underrepresented people of color. American education is on two separate trajectories serving two populations , one of which is growing rapidly. In the next fifty years, the Hispanic population is projected to reach 102.6 million (U.S. Census 2004). As educators we need to learn how to reach minority students unless we intend to shut ourselves off from what will soon be half of the population. We might think about the K–12 teachers’ refrain, “You teach the kids you get.” Dwindling numbers in the STEM workforce pipeline generally and in the STEM academic pipeline in particular is not a new problem. In the past, the solution to a shortage of academic candidates was to bring in talent from overseas; the United States has reaped enormous benefits from the importation of talent. It is difficult to imagine U.S. technology in the middle decades of the twentieth century without the scientists who fled Adolf Hitler, or those who immigrated to this country for a variety of other reasons. In past decades we have also imported considerable numbers of faculty members of color. And of course, the United States is fortunate in that many international students remain in this country after completing their education here. The importation solution is becoming a less viable option, however, as other countries strive to keep their talent at home and/or bring scholars back from the United States when they have completed their graduate work here. And just as it is becoming more difficult to import and keep international talent, the United States is requiring far larger numbers of scientists and engineers than ever before. Like other nations, we are increasingly dependent on technology and the foundational disciplines that produce it. Better technology is, in fact, a result of better science, not just more technology. Yet another consideration as we face this deficit is that science and technology continue to develop in complexity. Whereas in the past many people obtained adequate job training for careers in technology through high school or vocational training programs, society now depends on universities to produce this labor force. And we should not forget that our country also needs large numbers of K–12 teachers with a strong science background. So we have a shortage, and the old solution is no longer viable, or adequate to our needs. But we do have resources—the untapped talent of minority Americans. This should mean we have the answer to the problem: welcoming large numbers of minority students into STEM education. Minority Students in Science and Math 125 But this is not happening. In fact, we now have a problem of...