Parity in STEM Faculty

Inside Higher Ed
August 23, 2011

LAS VEGAS -- Numerous studies document the frustrations -- personal and professional -- of women who pursue science careers in higher education. Many of these women complain about unfair treatment, as well as frustrations that come with being in the minority (sometimes the extreme minority) in their departments.
The National Science Foundation is supporting a research project to focus more attention on STEM faculty at community colleges, where men and women are about 50-50 in faculty positions over all, and where women make up 47.7 percent of STEM faculty (compared to about one third at four-year institutions). Researchers who are part of a team at Ohio University studying the issue gave an overview of initial findings here at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/23/study_finds_high_satisfaction_by_women_in_science_at_community_colleges

Creating the Next Generation of Black Physicists

The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 30, 2011, 2:34 pm
By Marybeth Gasman

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), African-Americans earn only 1 percent of Ph.D.’s in physics. Given the changing and future demographics of our country and our nation’s need to be innovative and creative, this is a problem. We have an intellectual resource that we are ignoring.
This past week, I had the pleasure of attending an NSF workshop focused on collaboration in the sciences with the express purpose of increasing the participation of under represented minorities in the STEM fields. The workshop showcased some successful examples of collaboration and partnerships that currently exist with the hope of generating more partnerships among those invited to participate in the day’s events.

Full Story: http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/creating-the-next-generation-of-black-physicists/29545?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Dr. Marybeth Gasman teaches a Pre-Conference Workshop on Faculty Recuitment and Retention at the AAAA Access, Equity and Diversity Summit and Annual Meeting, June 28, 2011 in Atlantic City. For registration information, go to: http://www.affirmativeaction.org/conference.html

NSF: Role of HBCUs as Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients

by Joan Burrelli and Alan Rapoport[1]
NSF 08-319 August 2008

In a February 2008 article in the Washington Post, the presidents of four Maryland historically black institutions raised the issue of the role and relevance of historically black institutions in enhancing educational opportunities for African Americans (Avery et al 2008). This InfoBrief partially addresses this issue by examining the role of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as baccalaureate-origin institutions of black science and engineering (S&E)[2] doctorate recipients. It examines trends primarily during the past two decades and compares HBCUs to non-HBCU institutions, to different Carnegie types of institutions,[3] and to a select group of baccalaureate colleges—the Oberlin 50 (minus Hampton University which is an HBCU).[4] The InfoBrief also examines differences between public and private institutions. The analysis focuses on two types of output variables: the absolute number of doctorates and the institutional yield—the number of S&E doctorates in a given year per thousand bachelor's degrees awarded in all fields 9 years (the median time from bachelor's-to-doctorate receipt for S&E doctorates) prior to that year.
In the late 1970s over 40% of black S&E doctorate recipients received their baccalaureate degrees from HBCUs.[5] This percentage fell to 25% in the first part of the 1990s before increasing to about 33% in 2006. During the same period (1977–2006), the share of blacks receiving bachelor's degrees from HBCUs fell from 36% to 21% (figure 1).

Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients
Black S&E doctorate recipients from U.S. universities complete their undergraduate education at a wide variety of types of institutions in the United States. A small proportion of blacks earning S&E doctorates from U.S. universities had undergraduate degrees from foreign institutions, 8% in 2006 (table 1). An additional 2% did not provide information about their baccalaureate institutions in 2006. Of those with known U.S. baccalaureate institutions, in 2006 a third earned their bachelor's degrees from an HBCU institution and the remainder earned their bachelor's degrees from non-HBCU institutions. The percentage of S&E doctorate recipients earning their bachelor's degrees from HBCUs ranged between 24% and 33% from 1986 to 2006. Among those earning their baccalaureate degrees at known U.S. institutions in 2006 slightly less than one-third (31%) earned their bachelor's degrees from a non-HBCU research university. The remainder earned their bachelor's degrees from non-HBCU other doctorate-granting institutions (15%), master's-granting institutions (12%), or baccalaureate colleges (8%). The baccalaureate origin of 4% was an Oberlin 49 institution.

Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients Normalized for Bachelor's Degrees Awarded
Although only one-quarter to one-third of black S&E doctorate recipients received their bachelor's degrees from HBCUs from 1986 to 2006, when normalized by the number of bachelor's degrees awarded, HBCUs as a group yielded about as many future S&E doctorates per thousand bachelor's awarded as non-HBCU institutions during this period. The trends for both groups were similar (figure 2).

[To read the entire brief, go to: http://nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08319/#avery2008 ]