Monday, September 26, 2005

Shut Down All the Engineering Colleges! Zuska is exceedingly happy right now, having just read the following piece in Inside Higher Ed.  You go read it, too, right away, then come back here to chat.  Is It Time to Shut Down Engineering Colleges?. Domenico Grasso writes that they need a radical overhaul -- and a lot more liberal arts. [Inside Higher Ed] Domenico Grasso is, of course, the founding director of the Picker Engineering Program at Smith College, now a dean at University of Vermont.  I am casting my vote along with him for shutting down engineering colleges as we know them and rebuilding them on a completely new blueprint.  Yes indeedy, that's just what the doctor ordered!  It is inexpressibly satisfying to hear, after all these years, and from a male in engineering no less, that the manner in which I tried to pursue my own engineering education is exactly what we need to be encouraging in our students today.  And should have been doing all along.  So to that dissertation committee member who sneered at me during my prelims, "What does women's studies have to do with engineering?" Zuska says, "Everything in the world, you smarmy bastard."  5:30:29 PM    comment [] trackback [] Diversifying Science on a Shoestring Budget This came in over the Research Catalogue listserv (to subscribe, visit their website).  Igniting Potential: Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Southern Education Foundation, Summer 2005 (to download this report you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader) “In almost every STEM field, HBCUs [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] are ahead of the nation’s larger, wealthier, and traditionally White colleges in producing graduates” to diversify and enlarge the nation’s science professionals. Almost 40 percent of all African Americans earning baccalaureates in the natural sciences in 2000 graduated from HBCUs. Yet these 105 institutions collectively received “less than 2 percent of the $2.58 billion in federal grants awarded to higher education institutions.” SEF concludes that “additional categorical, institutional capacity building, financial aid, research, and community of practice support is needed to strengthen HBCUs’ contribution.”  It has long been known that African Americans who earn a STEM baccalaureate at an HBCU are more likely to go to graduate school and complete the PhD than African Americans from other institutions. This study of six HBCUs - Clark Atlanta, Spelman, Morehouse, Xavier, Tennessee State, and Morgan State - finds a striking disparity between their contribution to the STEM workforce and their modest public and private support (including the paltry amounts received for R&D and facilities). The nation, and especially the federal sector, is not investing in those institutions whose capacity to increase minority participation in STEM could expand and become even more productive. What can I say?  Except that this is just one more good reason for Xavier to receive the aid and support it needs to recover from the devastation of Katrina.      Also...Zuska says a special hello to Dr. Pamela Gunter-Smith at Spelman.  Now there's a role model for you.  And just a very wonderful person all the way around.  That web page does not brag about her and all her accomplishments near enough.  4:28:40 PM    comment [] trackback []

© Copyright 2005 Suzanne E. Franks. Last update: 10/3/2005; 2:08:11 PM.

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