University of Michigan Center for Engineering Diversity & Outreach Building Capacity for Broadening...

University of MichiganCenter for Engineering Diversity & Outreach

Building Capacity for Broadening Participation (in STEM and Beyond)

Daryl E. Chubin, Ph.D.

Director, AAAS Capacity Center

American Association for the Advancement of Science

September 23, 2011

Richard Florida’s The Creative Class: Leveraging Talent, not Technology Alone

“The university is perhaps the single most important institution of the creative age. It's certainly what gave the U.S. its huge edge in the 20th century, by virtue of attracting the best and the brightest from all around the world. Unfortunately, it's also the most mismanaged institution in many cases. . . . [T]he single biggest problem with all universities these days is their apparent inability—and in some cases blatant disinterest—in educating our population broadly across all social, economic, and ethnic demographics.”

. . . technology, tolerance, talent

Source: www.fastcompany.com/articles/2005/11/fastcities_florida.html

Building Capacity, Sept. 23, 2011

• Students:

- Demographic composition

- Pre-college academic preparation & related experiences

- Access to higher education—need- v. merit-based aid

• College Environment:

- Intervention programs—add-on to formal education

- Cultural competence of faculty—high expectations plus teaching all students well

- Structural support—climate, career info, mentoring, debt

How to Think about Student Underrepresentation—Fix the Students or College Environment?


AAAS Capacity Center at a Glance• Origin: Established as a science & engineering human resource

development consulting service August 2004 with 3-year, $400K grant from Sloan Foundation to AAAS (www.aaascapacity.org)

• Mission: Through nationally-calibrated research & technical assistance in examining programs & outcomes, foster institutional capacity to . . .

recruit, enroll, & support STEM students diversify the faculty change programs, structures, & attitudes

• Clients/Sponsors: Institutions of higher education, corporations, federal agencies, & non-profits (e.g., Harvard-PRISE, HP-Teaching with Technology, LSU-LA STEM, NSF-BPC, NSF-DUE, NSF-STC, Washington-CAEE, NACME, WEPAN, Florida, Purdue)

. . . focus on research, education, and institutional climate


Problem Thread of AAAS Capacity Center Work

• Who participates in STEM education and the workforce—who does not and why?

• How can institutions of higher education improve academic success, career advancement, and utilization of talent—students to faculty and other professions?

• How does Federal policy help/hinder?


AAAS Capacity Center Approach

• What are the “tipping points”?

Given the fragmentation and decentralization of the university, action is needed at several levels.

• How to create a climate of success?

This is a shared responsibility. The respective roles of deans, department chairs, and the faculty must be made explicit.

• What matters outside the university?

How are various clients, supporters, and publics consulted and enlisted to achieve goals? Formally appointed advisory bodies bring validation, guidance, and political capital.


Mind the Language

• Underrepresentation: a statistical concept that measures participation/ presence relative to a denominator (not to be confused with diversity)

• Diversity: a condition, a starting point, a means of achieving goals—not an end in itself (“visible diversity” as symbolism too often displaces “enacted diversity” or deeds)

It’s not the mix (diversity), but making the mix work (inclusion)


Dilemma

“In the fights over affirmative action, many people voice very strong opinions, either for or against . . . Supporters say categorically that considerations of race in university admissions are fully justified, either because of our egregious history of discrimination in this country or the critical benefits of being educated in a racially diverse environment.

Opponents are equally vociferous, contending that racial preferences undermine the entire premise of the civil rights movement: that individuals should be judged on their merits, not their skin color.”

source: Richard Kahlenberg, “Are Legacy Preferences ‘Defensible Corruption”?

The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 3, 2011.


Dilemma (cont.)

“. . . one set of preferences (for underrepresented students) is going to students who, on average, are more economically disadvantaged than the general applicant pool, while the other set of preferences (for legacies) is going to students who, on average, are more advantaged

. . . When honoring merit, it matters a great deal whether a preference is being provided to students who are likely to have more potential in the long run than their test scores suggest, given obstacles they’ve overcome, or less potential, given advantages they’ve enjoyed.”

source: Kahlenberg, Mar. 3, 2011


What Proponents See: Gaps Galore

Economic Chasms:–Unemployment (9% White, 16% Black)

–Wealth (20:1 Whites-Blacks; 18:1 Whites-Hispanics;

larger than 7:1 ratio in 1995)

Education Disparities:–College access–Degree completion–Faculty composition–NIH RO1 success rate (10% gap between White and Black)

sources: US Dept of Education; NSF; NIH; Pew Research Center; US Census Bureau, Survey

of Income and Program Participation, 2009


What Critics of Affirmative Action See and Say

• Taking race, ethnicity, and gender into consideration in any competition requires the use of quotas, preferences, and reverse discrimination

• Collect no data—counting and classification is unnecessary

• Excellence and equity are incompatible goals—serving one dilutes the other


The Quiet Record

• Obama Administration has placed a higher percentage of ethnic minorities among his nominees into federal judgeships than any other President.

o African American: 21% v. 7% (Bush) & 16% (Clinton)

o Hispanics: 11% v. 9% v. 7%

o Asian American: 7% v. 1% v. 1%

• Nearly half (47%) of the confirmed nominees during this administration are women (v. 23% under Bush, 29% under Clinton)

• Yet Congress has been slow to confirm nominees, some of whom sail through committee and spend months waiting for Senate vote.

source: John Schwartz, “For Obama, a Record on Diversity But Delays on Judicial

Confirmations, The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2011, p. 17


Manipulation of Language

“Diversity is a good thing, but how do you achieve it—by quotas? Do you achieve it by lowering your standards? Or do you achieve it by removing any discriminatory barriers that might exist and by casting a wide net?

The more you focus on race and gender, the less you’re going to focus on other traditional qualifications—that’s simply the math of it.”

Curt Levy, Committee for Justice

in Schwartz, Aug. 7, 2011


US Dept of Education Office for Civil Rights

Under the Obama Administration, OCR (Russlyn Ali, Assistant Secretary) has:

•Challenged school systems that deny Black and Hispanic high school students access to STEM courses that would improve their chances for college admission

•Launched over 70 Title VI investigations (for race, color, and national origin discrimination)

•Done more in 2 years than the Bush Administration did in 8

source: DeWayne Wickham, “Embattled Obama Should Tout Ongoing Fight

for Minority Education,” USA Today, Aug. 9, 2011


“On Race, Silence is Bipartisan”

“The two [political] parties, which openly clashed over race from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, have for the last decade pretty much agreed not to talk about race . . . [C]olor-blind positions are far more politically popular.*

(*Finding from Applied Research Center national survey: “The people who are most inclined to speak out on the subject of racial diversity are those who hold the most negative opinions.” Sam Fulwood III, Diverse Education, Aug. 31, 2011)

It is not only legitimate, but also essential, to evaluate policy options partly on the basis of whether they are likely to reduce or increase racial inequalities.

Compromise policies—not explicitly race-targeted but . . . Chosen partly because they will benefit nonwhites especially—should become the basis for policy debates.

For example, without using explicit racial classifications, we can devise districts and situate homes in ways that are more likely to produce integrated schools and neighborhoods.

source: Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith, The New York Times, Sept. 2, 2011


Reality of My Lifetime

“Our nation is moving toward two societies, separate and unequal”*

Kerner Commission, 1968

(National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders)

* The second society has now become both Black and Hispanic.


The U.S. Has A “STEM Pipeline” Problem

Need: Increase Educational And Workforce Access/Diversity for Women and Underserved Minorities—A 21st Century

imperative

Data: U.S. Trails 26 Other Developed Countries In The Proportion Of College

Students Graduating In STEM Fields

Women (50% of U.S. College-Age Population) & Underserved Minorities (ca. 40% of College-Age Population) Are Highly Underrepresented In STEM Higher Education/Degrees & STEM Workforce (incl. Academia)

Women, URM, Disabled = ca. 25% STEM Workforce v. 66% Total Workforce

The U.S. is losing vast, needed intellectual capacity to compete in the global economy, sustain its innovation leadership, and ensure its national security. We are under-educating and/or under-utilizing citizen talent.


The Reach of Underrepresentation

Underrepresentation in the S&E workforce stems from the under-production of minorities in S&E at every level of postsecondary education:

• 38.8 percent of K-12 public enrollment

• 33.2 percent of the U.S college-age population

• 26.2 percent of undergraduate enrollment

• 17.7 percent of those earning S&E bachelor’s degrees

• 17.7 percent of overall graduate enrollment

• 14.6 percent of S&E master’s degrees

• 5.4 percent of S&E doctorates

Source: The National Academies, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation, Sept. 2010

Degrees in S&E: As degree level increases, women’s and URMs’ share of degrees decreases. At each level, these groups are less likely to earn degrees in S&E.

Figure 3-1. Percent of U.S. Citizen and Permanent Resident Women and Under-Represented Minorities at Each Degree Level, 2005-06

56.3%

48.9%

54.7%

35.6%33.7%

26.1%

6.0%8.2%

12.7%16.2%17.7%18.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

All bachelor'sdegrees

S&E bachelor'sdegrees

All master'sdegrees

S&E master'sdegrees

All doctorates S&E doctorates

Women Under-represented minorities

Source: CPST, data derived from National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Degrees, by Race/Ethnicity of Recipients: 1995-200 6.

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Proportion of S&E Degrees

STEM Faculty: Gender

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• STEM faculties do not look like their student bodies, which do not look like the college-age U.S. population

• Non-Asian minorities are over one-third and women over half of U.S. college-age population, but they are highly underrepresented in STEM higher education and workforce

• U.S. benefits from success of other countries in global economy, welcomes foreign students, but important gaps and needs persist

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The National Imperative: In Summary . . .

Demographic Highlights: Timeline

• 2011- Over 1/3 of U.S. college-age populationare those minorities under-represented in STEM

• 2023 - More than half of all U.S. children will be minority

• 2042 - Minorities will be the new majority

• 2050 - Minorities will account for 54% of U.S. Population, which is expected to total 439 million

- 1 in 3 people will be HispanicSource: The National Academies, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation, Sept. 2010

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• 82% of students from higher-income families earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24 compared with just 8% from low-income families.

• A society in which children from wealthy families are 10 times as likely to complete college degrees as those from poor families is marked by profound inequality.

• Public schools are more segregated today than at any time in the last three decades. As US society is becoming more diverse, our student populations are being divided by race and class. Many colleges now have “rich kids of all colors.”

• * Richard Kahlenberg, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 1, 2011

Wealth/Income and Access

Data Lessons—Analysts Should Look at . . .

•Numbers/trends (how many?)

•Composition (who?)

•Quality/creativity (what?)

• The national data, as compelling as they are, can only contribute to an institutional policies that will conform to key legal and policy principles. Institutional action should be, at core:

o Mission Driven—Context Matters Framed in core education terms (aims associated with education,

workforce and citizenship preparation, national security, research, etc.)

o Numbers-Informed—Data are Necessary, but not Sufficient

o Goal-oriented to Redefine What is “Excellence” Leave “excellence v. equity” behind; diversity in its broadest sense

is 21st Century imperative

• Goals such as racial balancing, curing societal discrimination, etc. are unconstitutional

o Seeking to achieve representation of a minority group or women in the student body or faculty that approximates their representation in the local community, state, or nation is simply not allowed by the Courts

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The Compelling Interest: Linking Evidence to Legal Standards, or What Lawyers See . . .

Big Lesson: Operate on the Context, not just the Content

2004: To help guide program staff & university counsels in interpreting the Grutter and Gratz rulings . . .

2008: Sloan- and NSF-funded pilot project (AAAS/AAU) to identify effective STEM programs & practices for students and faculty, making them legally sustainable

See http://www.aaas.org/publications/books_reports/standingourground/


2008 AAAS Roundtable

U.S. Industry and Academic Leaders Ask Research University General Counsel:

How can university leaders sustain effective STEM programs to increase racial and gender diversity of faculties and student bodies in a complex legal landscape?

The answer involves participation by a broad range of institutions of higher education beginning with research universities (and collaboration with AAU)

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AAAS-AAU Law & Diversity Project Objectives: • Identify And Foster Common Understanding Of Effective Diversity/Access Programs That

Are Also Legally Sustainable—STEM Focus, But Broadly Applicable• Build Productive Partnerships Of Academic Policy/Program And Legal Leaders To Design

And Implement Diversity/Access Programs• Support Measurable Progress Within 5-6 Years• Provide Practical Tools, through Workshops & Publication of Handbook, For Policymakers

and Lawyers

Sponsors: • Phase 1: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation & NSF (Aug. 2008-Sept. 2010) • Phase 2: NSF (Oct. 2010-Sept. 2012)

Leadership:

Dr. Daryl Chubin (AAAS) & Jamie Lewis Keith, Esq., (University of Florida), Project Directors

Dr. Shirley Malcom (AAAS), Senior Project Advisor

Dr. John Vaughn, AAU Liaison

Art Coleman/Scott Palmer (EducationCounsel LLC) and Bob Burgoyne/Prof. Ted Shaw (Fulbright & Jaworski LLP) Project Outside Counsel—Phase 1

Art Coleman, Project Outside Counsel with Burgoyne/Shaw as Advisory Board Chairs

Participation of College Board, ACE, NACUA, AAMC, AACC, APLU, Thurgood Marshall Fund, & IHEP—Phase 2


Handbook on Diversity and the Law—

Navigating A Complex Landscape to Foster Greater Faculty and Student Diversity in Higher Education

The Law Governing Effective Faculty and Student Body Diversity Programs in STEM and Related Disciplines . . . and Its Implications for Institutional Policy

AAAS-AAU, April 2010

http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/publications/complexlandscape/

Summary and Highlights

http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/documents/LawDiversity_SUMMARY.pdf

January 2011


Law Distinguishes between Under-utilization v. “Pipeline Problem”

• Life sciences/academic medicine fraught with under-utilization of women

o PhD production at parity by gender, but hiring (and promotion) lags

• Pipeline problem exists for minority PhDs

o Like other science fields, there is an inadequate pool to populate university departments

o Note that, according to CGS, African Americans complete the PhD in life science disciplines at rates—overall and in time to degree—comparable to Whites/Asians, but are not hired in R1 departments


Complicated Legal Landscape: Different Legal Justifications Required for Employment and StudentsEmployment-Remedial

• Equal Protection Clause

o Public Institutions

• Title VII (Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Religion)

o Private (>15 Employees), Public employers

• OFCCP--Executive Orders (Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Religion)

o Federal Contractors

• Title VI (Race/Ethnicity); Title IX (Gender)

o If Purpose Of Federal Funding Is Employment Or Employment Confers An Educational Benefit

o Overlaps With Title VII

Student Programs-Diversity

• Equal Protection Clause (EPC)

o Public Institutions

• Title VI (race)

o Whole Operation Of Federal Funding Recipient, Including Employment If It Is The Purpose Of Funding Or Confers An Educational Benefit

o EPC Principles To Privates

• Title IX (gender)

o Whole Operation Of Federal Funding Recipient, Including Employment.

o EPC Principles To Privates31


The Tipping Point

“The key to getting people to change their behavior

. . . sometimes lies with the smallest details of their

immediate situation. The Power of Context says

that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their

environment than they may seem” (p. 29).

Malcolm Gladwell, 2002


An Empirical Basis for Optimism

“One of the most important findings from our research is that success in faculty diversity is no mere historical accident. A significant amount of the variation in faculty diversity reflects individual university effort and practice—strategies that can be replicated at other institutions.”

source: University Leadership Council, Breakthrough Advances in Faculty Diversity, 2008, p. 14


In Faculty Recruitment & Hiring—Adjust Your/Others’ Expectations

• “Can’t find” or “they won’t come” (but they exist) v. a “pipeline problem” (there is a shortage)

• Vigilance/persistence/commitment top to bottom v. weak links in the chain

• “I know quality when I see it” v. recognition that quality comes in different packages

• Mainstreaming efforts v. creating “special” [search, position, etc.] that marginalizes the effort & stigmatizes the result


Diversifying the Faculty—What Department Chairs Can Do

• List peer institutions by department/discipline.

• Benchmark your unit against these departments and all institutions nationally regardless of type.

• Establish a timeline for diversifying your faculty (baseline + interim goals).

• Assess your unit’s “climate”—survey faculty and grad students. If possible, disaggregate results by gender, race/ethnicity, rank, etc. (without disclosing individual identities).


Dynamics of Faculty Composition— Effecting Change through . . .

• Retirements

• Promotions

• New tenure-track hires (incl. cluster hires)

• Temporary hires (lecturer, adjunct, postdoc)

• Other (exchanges, shared appointments)

Practice “vertical accountability”


Bottom Line: The Faculty Search Process

• Focus on the adequacy of the outreach process.

• Task individual faculty members with contacting colleagues to identify potential candidates.

• Examine the resulting diversity of the candidate pool.

If you have not done all possible outreach and the pool is not diverse, the outreach, not the pool, is inadequate.

Terminating a search is an option.


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• Seek faculties and students–of any race/gender–with demonstrated records of including minorities, women, other under-served individuals, and many perspectives in classroom, research, mentoring, other work/school activities

• Neutral: authentically mission-critical apart from race/gender

- Provides experience for everyone working in diverse settings—opportunities to develop critical skills to succeed in an increasingly diverse and global society

- Fosters potential of better issue identification, problem-solving, research

- Must sincerely target all with record of inclusion—not only women and minorities (and must equally require all to demonstrate records)

• Conduct-, not viewpoint-, focused

- Regardless of view of race and gender, conduct in class, research activities (not topics/view), mentoring, other work can be inclusive

Conduct of Inclusion in Faculty Searches—A “Holistic Review”

Your Role as . . . .Leaders, Decision-makers, and Advisors

• Set an overall tone

• Make expectations explicit

• Be transparent

• Ensure fairness in processes

• Create a mix of talent

• Stir the mix to maximize individual & group contributions

• Recognize exemplary practices


What Advisors Can Do

• Enlarge thinking, then connect to possible action

• Keep score—monitor at the most disaggregated level

• Demand a 3-5 year plan

• Put resources—human and fiscal—behind rhetoric

• Act as validation for “prophets in their own land”

• Give “courage to the lion”

• Insist on accountable leadership

• Be critical and vigilant!


Strategies: How to Change the Culture

From zero-sum game to “plus factors”—the need to keep score:

Research and teaching, no “excellence” without equity, technical and “soft” (professional) skills—not versus

Need for critical mass (context-specific, students and faculty), affinity groups, & mentoring

Measure dimensions of participation: access, excellence, advancement, role models

Update what is “known”


Tipping Points—Students

• When a critical mass of students of color (n>2) enters a graduate program

• When students transfer into a STEM major

• When students acknowledge that they have “safe places” and supports (mentor, tutor, peer study group, residence hall, research internship) within the academic environment

• When the BS graduation rate is about the same for minority and nonminority students


Tipping Points—Institution

• When “climate surveys” are no longer required, but conducted at regular intervals

• When soft-money projects that have demonstrated efficacy are institutionalized as an ongoing program supported by the institution’s operating budget

• When promising practices are shared across departments, with or without administration incentives

• When the institution, and not its constituent parts, is seen as the unit of change


HBCUs

• Account for more than 1/5 of all African American undergraduates

• Confer 28% of STEM baccalaureate degrees

• Represent 8 of the top 10 colleges whose African American graduates went on to earn PhDs in science and engineering disciplines

Couple this record with HBCUs’ commitment to enroll students from largely low-income and academically under-prepared backgrounds and we conclude that HBCUs are “over-producing” baccalaureate and doctoral students.

Source: Karl Reid, “Historically Black Colleges and Universities Are Vital to a Diverse

U.S. Workforce, Diverse Education, Sept. 7, 2011 (data from NSF).


HSIs and Latinos

• In 2009-10, just over half (54%)* of all Latino undergraduate students were enrolled in about 10% of higher education institutions in the U.S. (* v. 63% Black, 73% White, and 78% Asian students)

• In 1995, 135 institutions met the U.S. Dept of Ed definition of HSI; in 2009-10, 293 institutions met the definition.

• Of these 293, 112 offer graduate degrees and 40% are public institutions located in 17 states and Puerto Rico.

• The majority of HSIs are community colleges.

• 75% of HSIs are located in 3 states and Puerto Rico.

• 60% of HSIs in 2009-10 had an “open admissions policy.”

• Latinos make up less than 5% of faculty nationwide.

source: Excelencia in Education, based on data from U.S. Dept of Ed, NCES, IPEDS


Questions—Especially for Engineering—to Ponder

• Refining the image of engineering & reaching out to a more diverse talent pool: how to do this better?

• Creating a climate of success: what is the role of deans & department chairs?

• Empowering the faculty to become culturally competent & experimental in the curriculum: how to crack through the engineering establishment?

• Adapting federal programs so that the soft-money interventions become mainstream in the engineering college: how to make the case with data & persuasion?


Is It Time for Class-based Affirmative Action?http://chronicle.com/article/Reactions-Is-It-Time-for/62615/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en , Dec. 16, 2009

• Reactions to a Public Agenda finding that the main reason students drop out of college is that they have to work:

Julian Bond— “. . . it must not and cannot be viewed as a replacement for race.”

Walter Benn Michaels— “. . . economic affirmative action is likely to take its place alongside economic diversity as yet another substitute for economic equality.”

Lee Bollinger—”. . . We [should] not be forced to make a false choice between admissions policies that focus on wealth and class and those that seek to achieve greater diversity based on race and ethnicity.”

Roger Clegg—”. . . I would much prefer that preferences be based on socio-economic status rather than race . . . . I doubt that the educational benefits of any sort of diversity can justify admitting students other than those most willing and able to do work at a high intellectual level.”


Key Sources of My Remarks• Handbook on Diversity and the Law: Navigating A Complex Legal Landscape To Foster

Greater Faculty and Student Diversity In Higher Education, Burgoyne et al., AAAS-AAU, 2010, http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/publications/complexlandscape/PDFs/LawDiversityBook.pdf; Summary and Highlights, Keith and Chubin, Jan. 2011 http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/documents/LawDiversity_SUMMARY.pdf

• Prepared for Work, Not the Career: Building Science, Engineering, and Technology Leadership, A Report of a PAESMEM/AAAS Workshop for Women in Industry, Academia and Government, October 2010, http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/paesmem-aaas-workshop-proceedings/12667312 (Bogue, B., Y. Comedy, and D. Chubin).

• Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads, The National Academies, Sept. 2010, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12984

• “Bias literacy: A Review of Concepts in Research on Gender Discrimination and the U.S. Context.” In A. Cater-Steel & E. Cater (Eds.), Women in Engineering, Science and Technology: Education and Career Challenges. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, April 2010 (Sevo, R. and D.E. Chubin).

• Breakthrough Advances in Faculty Diversity, University Leadership Council, 2008, http://www.educationadvisoryboard.com/ulc_council_services.asp


Lessons from Clients—What the Capacity Center Has Learned

• S&E exhibits a narrow view of “merit”—bias toward performance over promise leads to risk-aversion

• Any collaboration or program that defies formal organization lines or relationships takes time to institutionalize

• Collaborations typically begin with soft money—and few survive to become lines in the institutional operating budget

• Innovators are not prophets in their own land—credibility comes from national/international recognition

• Data depersonalizes the conversation—institution-wide measures subject all units to the same criteria

• Campus leaders (President, Provost) can bless best practices of individual units and elevate them with institutional imprimatur


Final Thought

“The abiding chasm between America’s haves and have-nots reminds us that Dr. King was a true prophet and of our responsibility to fight for justice in all its forms.”

source: “Dr. King’s Dreams,” The New York Times, Aug. 20, 2011


To continue the conversation . . .

Daryl Chubin, Ph.D., Director

[email protected]

AAAS Capacity Center

www.aaascapacity.org


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