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

looking the way of HBCUs for expertise in STEM education.

Enacting institutional responsibility to promote Black student achievement in STEM is rooted in the very belief that all students have the inherent intelligence and capacity to learn and succeed no matter their circumstances. Colleges and universities must promote a belief that all students can succeed and take the responsibility to ensure that success. Institutional responsibility is understanding the circumstances that can constrain student progress and taking action toward mitigating their influence and in essence centering students who need greater attention and support. Campus leaders must focus on addressing differences in learning gaps among students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Rather than merely pointing fingers at students for their lack of performance, we must consider the institution’s responsibility in carrying these students forward.

Learning in the STEM fields is cumulative. A lack of preparation does not mean students cannot excel in STEM; it means that they need more exposure to sound study skills and opportunity to work with the material to reach their goals and it is the job of faculty members to provide these opportunities. Just as we build muscle in the body to become stronger physically, we must build muscle in STEM to ensure that students succeed. It is essential that more faculty members begin to consider intelligence as malleable, or a muscle that grows with hard work, as opposed to associating intelligence with one’s shortcomings or lack of opportunity.

Within most institutions, individualism is privileged over collaboration and community; faculty members often communicate with students that many of them will crack under the pressure and challenges of the courses, suggesting that not all students are meant for STEM degrees. However, the 10 HBCUs in our study teach us how both faculty members and students can collaborate to have a richer experience. Students, working hand-in-hand to solve problems and challenges, realize that they all make more significant progress when they support each other and work as a team. They understand that none of them lose out by helping others, and in fact, they benefit greatly from the knowledge and support of their peers. And faculty members at these HBCUs who work together across disciplines, classes, and curricula, learn that they benefit from more welcoming and family-like environment in which regular communication with each other strengthens the work that they do for and with students. Those faculty members that center students in the STEM fields value collaboration and connectedness with each other and among students.

Faculty members at each of the HBCUs we visited see the success of African American students in STEM as a social justice issue due to the vast inequities across STEM, healthcare services, and academia. They also see HBCUs as a mechanism for cultivating scholars who are dedicated to promoting a just and humane society. The social justice mentality of HBCU faculty members results in a focus on students’ learning needs. What we found in STEM departments at HBCUs resonates with college and university rankings in the Washington Monthly, which, unlike the US News and World Report rankings, focus on institutions that add value to students and have a focus on social justice and service.

Viewing students as family at HBCUs is about the amount of energy and resources faculty members are willing to deploy for their students. When students at the HBCUs in this study were viewed as family, faculty members were protective and held them accountable on a daily basis. The very notion of family means offering unwavering support at the same time as having high expectations. The combination of the two leads to success for students who want to be held accountable and nurtured in their learning environments.

We hope that readers will push back on status quo practices taking place in STEM classrooms and programs across the nation. Moreover, we hope that STEM faculty members and practitioners will have the will to provide the best learning experiences for African American students and all students.

Dr. Marybeth Gasman is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education & Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University.

Dr. Thai-Huy Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of Education at Seattle University