STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math
Last Friday, March 31, I participated in a conference "Creating Minnesota's Plan for Career Development in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math" arranged by the Citizens League, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the Science Museum of Minnesota. The conference participants included a wide range of leaders from business, education, government, and non-profit organizations, and featured an address by Governor Tim Pawlenty.
The conference was motivated by these sobering challenges facing Minnesota:
- 20-33% projected increases in scientific and technical occupations in ten years
- 10% decrease in the number of high school graduates by 2013
- 52% increases in the number of graduate students of color, while Caucasian graduates decrease 18.7%
- 20-40 point spreads between Caucasians and other cultural groups in science and math college readiness
- 51% of superintendents report difficulty or great difficulty in filling science teaching positions
- Only an average of 56.5% of newly hired teachers are still teaching after four years
Three desired outcomes were listed for the conference:
- To come to a common understanding of these challenges Minnesota faces in meeting the science, thechnology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce needs of the future
- To create a high-level shared vision to increase the number of STEM graduates across all cultural groups and income levels and to promote a higher level of STEM literacy for all graduates
- To establish high-level priorities and strategies toward this vision involving business, education, government, and non-profit organizations within communities and across the state of Minnesota
In subsequent posts I'll try to summarize some of the major ideas and strategies that emerged from the conference.
This sort of public engagement, in which the university is not seen mainly as a dispenser of expertise but rather as one component of the broader social system, makes explicit one of our most important roles in society.