The National Science Foundation (NSF) is making strides toward a more diverse STEM workforce and the university is heading in the same direction.
Last week, the NSF launched a new initiative called NSF INCLUDES, which stands for Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoveries in Engineering and Science. The initiative focuses on broadening participation to underrepresented communities, which include women, people of color and people with disabilities.
The NSF will award 30 to 40 institutions with roughly $300,000 each to help test innovative ways of broadening participation in STEM.
Diversity in STEM majors has been increasing, not only in the classroom but with the professors as well. According to Joshua Zide, an associate professor in the engineering department, there have been four recently-hired professors in the College of Engineering—two are women and one is a Hispanic man.
“For faculty, our diversity has been improving pretty steadily,” Zide said. “As for the diversity in the classroom, I don’t have hard numbers, but it seems like improvement.”
It seems the issue of diversity in STEM has a much deeper root. The problem, Zide said, comes from the lack of communication and schooling for students at a younger age. Referred to as a “leaky pipe,” the opportunities for children to become educated in STEM begins to drop off before high school.
“Focusing on making sure that everyone that is capable of succeeding has the resources they need to succeed is another really important part of the puzzle,” Zide said. “If you don’t fix the leaks in the pipeline, then at best you can do minor improvements.”
Thanks to platforms like the UD K-12 engineering program, these concerns are being addressed. Programs like this help to present younger students with the resources and tools they need to thrive through college and beyond, Zide said.
Faculty and staff across campus are beginning to come together in hopes of availing themselves this opportunity with NSF INCLUDES. Since this is a limited submission initiative, only one proposal per institution is allotted. On April 15, preliminary proposals are due to NSF, giving the university a short amount of time to choose one proposal to submit.
“We run an internal competition first at the university, so we select what we think is the strongest one,” Charles Riordan, the deputy provost for research and scholarship, said. “Choosing only one can be a difficult task.”
John Pelesko, a professor in the department of mathematical sciences, said he hopes the proposal he has been working on is the one that is selected.
Pelesko and his team of colleagues from numerous departments are in the preliminary stages of creating a program to increase STEM education by collaborating with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Delaware.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Delaware has a mission to inspire and enable children, most of which are underrepresented, and give them a place to realize their full potential, flourish and become responsible and successful adults. There are currently 44 locations in Delaware that all together serve more than 30,000 children annually.
The proposal Pelesko and his team will be presenting to the university is based on providing training for the teachers who work at the Boys and Girls Clubs. The program will involve bringing those teachers to campus for training by faculty here, so that they can increase the level of STEM education for the children.
“We are in the stages of fleshing out exactly what that will look like,” Pelesko said.
While focusing mostly on computer science education, this program will increase the desire to study STEM during the most vital time for these children, and with luck, this program will help fix the leaks in the pipeline., he said.
This program is a small step forward in solving the issue of increasing underrepresented groups in STEM.
BY EMILY RUFO
STAFF REPORTER