HBCUs AND THE NEXT GENERATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SCIENTISTS BY DR. MARYBETH GASMAN & DR.THAI-HUY NGUYEN
The United States is in racial chaos, with racial slights and aggressions being thrown around like baseballs and a federal effort to weaken the enforcement of civil rights in full swing. In the midst of this environment, many African American students are pursuing degrees in the STEM fields. We have a choice— to ensure that they have a positive and successful learning experience that embraces both their identity and desire to earn degrees in STEM or continue as is, with significant numbers of Blacks dropping out of the STEM fields due to systemic racism and a lack of belief in their intellect and potential. Colleges and universities promote diversity nearly every day. Both the public and private sector send messages that we need more diversity in STEM in order to be globally competitive and to fill STEM-related positions in the U.S. Yet, most institutions of higher education have yet to change the rules of the game—they often operate in ways that maintains the status quo, White and male. If higher education is serious about being more inclusive and shaping the talent pool in our country, it must have deeper, critical conversations about the way STEM courses are taught, the assumptions and implicit biases held by faculty and students, the intense focus on competition, the obsession with only the ‘best’ students, and the lack of sincerity around faculty diversity. Doing otherwise shows a truncated commitment to diversity overall. In our book, Making Black Scientists: A Call to Action (Harvard University Press, 2019), we offer an agenda for promoting greater racial equity by considering practices that can alter the rules of the game, leading to wider access to opportunities that facilitate achievement in STEM for Black students. These practices are drawn from what we learned at the 10 HBCUs in this book. Many HBCUs have been using these practices for decades and have disproportionate results for African Americans in STEM given their size, resources, and the preparation of their students. Colleges and universities across the nation would benefit from 28 | HBCU Times 2020 Summer Issue
