The Mini Symposium on Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: Suggestions to CEOSE
August 16, 2010
On October 27-28, 2009, over 100 participants gathered in Arlington, Virginia for The Mini-Symposium on Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Implemented by TERC and organized by Dr. Maria (Mia) Ong , this two-day panel and discussion forum advanced the current state of knowledge about complex challenges that women of color encounter in STEM and suggested strategies for enabling them to excel and assume advanced positions in the field.
The Mini-Symposium was a key opportunity for participants to share experiential knowledge and evidence-based findings, and to provide comments and suggestions about how the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women of color in STEM may be improved through research, practice, policy, and evaluation. Speakers and participants consisted of African American, Native American, Hispanic/Latina, and Asian American women graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior and senior faculty, and junior and senior professionals in STEM disciplines. Staff from NSF and other federal STEM agencies attended and presented, as did program leaders who serve to support women of color in STEM; policy experts and evaluation experts with an interest in diversity issues; and social science scholars who study factors that promote or hinder women of color in STEM education and careers.
The Mini-Symposium featured two keynote addresses, a synthesis report, presentations by four panels, and a closing session with summary remarks and a roundtable discussion. Speakers included:
- Christina (Tina) M. Tchen, J.D., Director, Office of Public Engagement and Executive Director, Council on Women and Girls, The White House, who gave a second keynote address on “Addressing STEM Education and Careers Through the White House Council on Women and Girls.”
- Joan S. Burrelli, Ph.D., Senior Analyst, Science Resources Statistics, NSF, who gave a keynote address on “Women of Color in STEM Education and Employment.”
- Maria (Mia) Ong, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, TERC, who presented her findings from “‘Inside the Double Bind’ Synthesis Project: Empirical Research on Women of Color in STEM.”
The conference had four foci of discussion:
- The 'Personal Perspectives' panel fostered an understanding of the complexities of inhabiting dual minority statuses in STEM;
- 'Qualitative Findings' presented qualitative data about women of color on educational and professional paths in STEM, with a focus on understanding patterns among pathways taken;
- 'Quantitative Research and Evaluation' included data from studies tracking and elucidating the experiences of women of color in STEM;
- The final panel, 'Policy and Action', focused on actions, practices, and policies that are being implemented to help advance women of color to the top of STEM fields.
Suggestions were collected by means of a closing roundtable session, in which participants worked in small groups to reflect on, discuss, and submit ideas. The suggestions included:
1. Increase funds for programs that help to augment the number and success of women of color in STEM fields.
- Undergraduate research opportunities for women of color in STEM.
- Graduate and postdoctoral fellowships in STEM fields where women of color are most underrepresented: physics, astronomy, computer science, and some areas of engineering.
- Workshops and conferences for critical stakeholders (i.e. professional societies, university department chairs in STEM, honor societies) to discuss preparation of underrepresented minority women for employment and share evidence-based best practices.
- Programs that teach the culturally competent mentoring of women of color in STEM.
- Funding for smaller institutions to bring senior women of color faculty and professionals to speak and mentor on campus.
- Professional development programs for women of color on writing and publishing, as well as grant money and protected time for underrepresented minority women to write and publish.
- Professional development programs on entrepreneurial skills-building (interviewing, salary negotiation, proposal submissions) targeting women of color to help them develop tools they need to reach parity with white males.
- Leadership workshops for women of color in STEM.
- Collaborations between NSF and other agencies to increase funding for initiatives that improve representation of women of color in STEM.
2. Increase the knowledge base on women of color in STEM through more research, evaluations, and support for publishing. Possible topics include:
- Assessment of the current levels of inclusion for women of color in STEM across all sectors—academic, industry, and government.
- Reports of disaggregated racial/ethnic and gender data at all educational and career levels.
- Investigation of how institutional policy and practices create additional barriers for women of color; research on the drop-off in women of color’s participation in tenure-track academic positions in STEM fields.
- Investigation of how to institutionalize promotion or tenure systems that reward and recognize the additional burden of service to communities of color (through mentoring, serving on committees, etc.).
- Reports on the numbers and success of women of color in STEM industry (longitudinal tracking, professional society data, etc.).
- Translational research on women of color in STEM to stimulate academy-industry partnerships.
- Re-examination of The Double Bind findings to determine what progress has been made and what issues remain.
- Diversity within the diversity: examination of experiences of women of sub-groups of racial cultures (i.e. African Americans vs. immigrant Africans) in STEM education and employment.
In addition, increase funding for:
- Capacity-building and consultant-hiring to mine data from existing programs.
- Publishing and dissemination of empirical research on the experiences of women of color in STEM.
3. Develop and support a centralized, digital clearinghouse of information about women of color in STEM, which would include:
- Data on representation and participation.
- Research done by and about women of color in STEM.
- Programs providing opportunities and grants.
- Organizations that provide professional development and networking opportunities.
- Information on mentoring opportunities.
- Data contributed by professional societies and informal science organizations.
- Search-fed capabilities so other organizations can add information and links.
4. Create and sustain a professional network for women of color in STEM.
- Build and support national in-person and virtual networks among women of color in STEM. A model for this could be Ford Foundation Fellowships, which give awardees lifelong access to conferences, networks, mentoring, and other opportunities.
- Create and sustain regional efforts to open dialogues on issues relevant to women of color in STEM on college campuses.
- Create and sustain regional efforts to open dialogues on issues relevant to women of color in STEM in professional societies.
5. Recognize that transitions represent the greatest points of loss of women of color from STEM fields; invest funds in studying transitions and implementing programs at transition points. Key transition points include:
- Transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions.
- Fund research and evaluations on understanding causes of drop-off and drop-out rates.
- Fund first-year transition programs (mentoring, peer-mentoring, orientation, leadership development workshops).
- Fund research opportunities targeted to transfer students.
- Fund pedagogy workshops for STEM faculty on best practices for working with women of color transfer students.
- Transitioning from small, minority-serving undergraduate institutions to graduate programs at large research institutions.
- Fund research and evaluations on causes of drop-off and drop-out rates.
- Fund summer bridge programs (peer-mentoring, orientation, leadership development workshops).
- Fund programs that cultivate ties between MSIs and larger, predominantly white research institutions and government agencies.
- Fund programs that develop effective mentoring for women of color in year one of graduate programs.
6. Hold grantees to greater accountability for meeting the NSF’s Broader Impacts criterion of broadening participation of underrepresented groups.
- Set higher expectations for the quality of Broader Impacts statements: require proposers to indicate specific plans and evaluations for meeting the Broader Impacts criterion of broadening participation.
- In proposals, require a faculty recruitment and retention plan; in annual reports and final reports, require data and other evidence to demonstrate broadening participation.
- Put more weight on Broader Impacts through a tiered system of grant reviews. Proposers should provide evidence of meeting the Broader Impacts criterion of broadening participation in their prior NSF work.
- Tie funding to the strength of proposers’ Broader Impacts statements; tie future funding to their past performance in meeting their Broader Impacts commitments.
- Restructure grant funding so that a portion is withheld until a follow-up report is submitted on how the Broader Impacts criterion is met.
- Encourage communication between grantees and Broader Impacts experts.
- Closely monitor use of funds; disallow reallocation of funds for Broader Impacts work to other categories.
- Charge committees with conducting Broader Impacts audits to ensure fidelity to grantees’ Broader Impacts statements; publicly release audit results.
- Convene a conference on the outcome of the audits to develop conclusions on the effectiveness of the Broader Impacts requirements and develop recommendations for improvement.
7. Give recognition awards to grantees who demonstrate outstanding work in broadening participation in STEM.
8. Protect the funding of and ensure the mentoring of minority and female graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty.
- Audit the mentoring of postdoctoral fellows programs, including defining specific duties and their duration, requiring grant writing exposure, requiring professionalism, etc.
- Offer more funding for departments to support their women of color junior faculty to attend networking conferences.
- Do not allow reallocation of funds from graduate students for Principal Investigator travel or equipment.
- Allow only career proposals from assistant professors (already enforced by the NSF Engineering Directorate).
9. Support efforts to educate the public about the status of women of color, minorities, and women in STEM through citizen science efforts, informal science education, and other channels.
These summarized suggestions were then refined by TERC and submitted to CEOSE—the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, a Congressionally-mandated advisory committee to the National Science Foundation—in March and June 2010. Currently, CEOSE is reviewing and refining these suggestions with plans for submittal to Congress.
To download the full report entitled, The Mini-Symposium on Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): A Summary of Events, Findings, and Suggestions, please visit: http://www.terc.edu/work/1408.html.
*Photos by Choice Photography | Courtesy of the American Chemical Society
