Posts Tagged: high school
To attract more blacks and Hispanics to STEM, universities must address racial issues on campus
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was not Tiana Young's first choice for college, even though Young wants to dual major in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and the private university is one the top schools in the country for science, technology, math and engineering.
The school had one big drawback: Rensselaer's student body is more than two-thirds white and Asian, according to federal data. For Young, who is black and whose high school in Spring Valley, New York was almost entirely African-American and Hispanic, “the lack of diversity was a very big concern,” says the freshman. But Young, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, needed significant financial aid to attend college, and Rensselaer made a financial offer she couldn't refuse.
Academically, the school has been challenging but rewarding, a sentiment echoed by other African-American freshman. “I feel like I'll leave here 1,000 times smarter and ready for any job,” says Young's friend Charles Omoregbee, an engineering major. While Young has made white friends in her dorm — everyone rallied to help her when a mouse scampered into her room and hid — and in the Society of Women Engineers, her closest friends are all African-American. Most white students are friendly, but small slights and one major incident have left Young and other African-American students stressed by more than just homework.
During the first month of school, a white student who is part of the alt-right group Turning Point USA created a Facebook post that called for the return of separate water fountains for whites and “Coloreds.”
Young and her African-American classmates were shaken up by the post, and equally angered by the fact that the school never publicly addressed the issue. Some even contemplated transferring. “When we got here they acted like it's all rainbows and sprinkles at Rensselaer, but when something happens then everyone is silent,” says Jenari Mitchell, a freshman computer science major.
Students of color studying science, technology, engineering and math (collectively known as STEM) are underrepresented at schools around the country and even though most don't face overt racism they face a set of challenges that have led to persistent issues of under-representation at the graduate levels and across STEM professions.
African-American and Latino workers comprise just 16 percent of the advanced manufacturing workforce, 15 percent of the computing workforce and 12 percent of the engineering workforce, rates that have remained essentially flat for more than a decade, according to the 2015 US News/Raytheon STEM Index. And yet some STEM industries are already facing shortages of qualified personnel, and others project major growth in the future. Encouraging blacks and Hispanics, both growing populations, to pursue STEM careers is both an equity issue and crucial for the economy, according to Rodney Andrews, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas at Dallas. But, experts say, higher education must do more to address a set of challenges that keep blacks and Hispanics from pursuing STEM degrees.
Paying for college can be a major obstacle for black and Hispanic students, who are more likely to live in poverty than their white peers and more likely to be the first in their family to attend college. They're also more likely to attend poorly resourced segregated public schools that lack the tough curriculum needed to prepare them for college-level STEM courses. When they arrive on campus, college culture also makes a difference to the number of black and Hispanic students pursuing STEM degrees Experts and students say colleges and universities, especially STEM research institutions, aren't doing enough to ensure that students of color don't switch majors or drop out entirely.
According to one recent study, 37.5 percent of white and Asian-American students completed STEM degrees after five years, while completion rates for African-American and Latino students were 22.1 percent and 18.4 percent respectively. “It's no longer enough to just teach students,” says Tim Scott, assistant provost for undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University. “We need to ask, ‘What tools do we need to retain them?'”
Eugene Fiorini, a mathematics professor at Muhlenberg College who oversees a summer preparatory program, says schools don't do enough to integrate students of color into campus life. “The research shows that the trouble these students have in college has nothing to do with intelligence they don't feel like they are part of the college and they drop out more because of cultural isolation,” he says.
For black and Latino students shifting from segregated high schools, where they rarely saw a white face, to STEM-oriented research institutions where blacks and Hispanics are a tiny percentage of the student population, the adjustment can be especially difficult. “When I got here I thought, ‘Wow, so this is what it means to be a minority,'” says Young. Rensselaer's student population is 15 percent black and Hispanic this year, according to statistics provided by the school. “It was a culture shock.”
To read the whole article visit The Hechinger report.
Source: Published originally on The Hechinger Report,To attract more blacks and Hispanics to STEM, universities must address racial issues on campus, by Stuart Miller, January 23, 2018.
Davis Teen: How Those Pesky Mosquitoes Led to a Scientific Publication
Listen to ABC Channel 10 News, broadcast Dec. 22Seventeen-year-old Helena Leal doesn't like...
Researcher and lead author Helena Leal, 17, a scholar at Davis High School, injects a sample of odorants trapped in a solid phase micro-extraction syringe intothe gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in the Walter Leal lab at UC Davis. In back are chemical ecologist Walter Leal (right) and UC Davis student researcher Kaiming Tan. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Working on the mosquito cage assay are (from left) researchers Kaiming Tan, a UC Davis student in the Walter Leal lab; lead author Helena Leal of Davis High School, and UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Looking over mosquito specimens are (from left) UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal and two members of the research team: daughter Helena Leal, lead author; and UC Davis student Kaiming Tan. Not pictured is UC Davis student researcher Justin K. Hwang. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Davis High School scholar Helena Leal addresses the crowd at the Mexican-American Yolo County Concilio Scholarship Dinner. At left is keynote speaker Carlos Saucedo of ABC Channel 10.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Why Higher Education Depends on The Hispanic Market
- Reduced revenue driven by flat/declining enrollment and reduced public funding
- Reduced demand resulting from a shrinking pool of high school students and stagnating household incomes
- Increased questions about the value of a four-year college degree as young people's attitudes change and demand increases for better outcomes
- Technological disruption with the growth of online education, MOOCs (massive open online courses), and other non-traditional forms of education powered by digital technology
These challenges are causing universities, colleges and other education providers to merge, restructure and fundamentally rethink their business models. While many of the changes are likely necessary for the continued viability of higher education, the U.S. Hispanic market is one overlooked bright spot and opportunity.
In many ways, the Hispanic market represents an antidote and counterpoint to the prevailing issues noted above.
Reduced Revenue – Hispanics are seeing significant growth in terms of college enrollment. The number of Hispanic college students in the U.S. reached 3.4 million in 2012, rising from 11% of the U.S. college population in 2006 to over 17%. Hispanic enrollment in colleges, universities and other educational programs is increasing almost across the board.
The Value of a College Education – Hispanics continue to place a high level of importance on education, specifically in the form of traditional four-year college degrees. We have seen consistently across our Hispanic Millennial and Generation Z studies that young Hispanics, regardless of their nativity, diverge from non-Hispanic whites in their positive attitudes and beliefs towards higher education. For instance, 46% of Hispanic Millennials consider graduating from a four-year college as a future goal, compared to only 31% of non-Hispanic Millennials (HMP). Among Gen Z, we see that 67% of Hispanics 11-16 view college as essential, versus only 60% of non-Hispanic whites (We Are Gen Z Report).
The entire higher education industry has a major opportunity and potential “lifeline” with Hispanics. Taking advantage of these opportunities will require more than just simple cosmetic changes to their marketing materials or outreach efforts. To fully take advantage of the Hispanic market, colleges and universities will need to rethink and adjust all elements of their enterprise — from their recruiting to their curriculum, student support, and alumni relations. The lag in Hispanic four-year college completion rates is a testament to the importance of this “all-in” approach. Those that do will be well-positioned to emerge from the current environment as leaders in a new higher education landscape.
Source: Published originally on mediapost.com Why Higher Education Depends On The Hispanic Market by Jose Villa, June 23, 2017
No-Cost Meals and Exercise for the Summer
Image Source: http://bit.ly/2tO4myQ For some kids, the only healthy meal they consume is a...
Ventura Eats!
Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith, UC Observer, creator and chief contributor, kicks off the March speaker...
Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith (left), Susana Bruzzone-Miller-HAREC
students crowd to hear presentation
Hayden-Smith answers questions after presentation
Kurt Miller, Foothill Tech HS teacher in school garden
students wander in and out of garden during lunch time to water and tend to plants