Education Groups and Directors Discussion Board index

(posting on behalf of Frank Snowden)

After undergoing the recent scrutiny of our MRSEC, I was struck by our Center’s effectiveness in acting locally to improve diversity. (And I’m confident that this is equally true of every other MRSEC.)

But can we go beyond the programs each individual MRSEC runs to have impact on a broader scale? Can we reach another level of influence?

—-

If we all participate in this discussion on diversity—by sharing our best local practices, identifying opportunities for action, pinpointing problems and offering potential solutions—our collective thinking will evolve and we will have a national impact.

So let’s think about our best practices—what are you doing successfully—and plan to exchange ideas and information both on this forum and at the meeting in Princeton!

Here are some topics to kick-off the discussion:

• How can we improve science education in the inner city? (Key barrier to pursuing science in college is lack of preparation in K-12.)

• How do we recruit students from PREM partners more effectively? (sometimes, it’s difficult to get them to consider coming to our institutions).

• An alternative approach to improving science education may be to target students with an interest in teaching (in addition to current science teachers) for research experiences. Potential benefits? Potential drawbacks?

• Students sometimes seem less prepared than in the past; how do we increase diversity yet maintain our standards and expectations?

• Importance of values, and ethics education for students.

We would welcome your feedback on these topics and furthermore, would encourage all MRSEC Education Directors to submit comments and also offer additional ideas as to what you believe are the important issues to be considered at the Princeton meeting.

Ethan here - Given that we are a diverse group, with varied backgrounds and working in different contexts at our own institutions, I think that it is important for the science content working group to develop a bit in the way of common “values” if we are to work together effectively as a group.  A place to start, it seems to me, is to:

1)  Delineate explicitly our mission and focus
2)  Plan how we can best accomplish this mission
3)  Develop mechanisms to actualize these plans

I welcome others’ thoughts, of course, and am happy to proceed in some other manner if folks prefer.

Hello all!  Welcome to the Education Groups and Directors Discussion Board.