Remarks made by UC-Riverside Chancellor Cordova to the American Council on Education

October 6, 2005

Increasing participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics

I would like to start by providing some context for why this issue is so important. A recent report by The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation[1] identified benchmarks in six essential areas for maintaining the competitiveness and health of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise—education, the workforce, knowledge creation and new ideas, R&D investments, the high-tech economy, and specific high-tech sectors. In each instance, the signs are troubling. Let me provide a few examples:

*  Education: Graduate enrollment in STEM fields reached a peak in the U.S. in 1993. Over the next five years, enrollment declined dramatically. The ensuing recovery, which brought levels back to nearly that of the 1993 level, was driven primarily by growth in engineering and computer sciences. Meanwhile, graduate enrollment in the physical, earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences declined 12 percent, while mathematics dropped by 17 percent.[2]

*  Workforce: Juxtapose this with what is happening in the workforce. The number of STEM positions in the U.S. is growing at five times the rate of other occupations, according to the Council on Competitiveness.[3]  But a much slower growth rate in the number of S&E degrees earned by U.S. citizens, combined with a rapid increase in retirements in these fields, puts the U.S. at a competitive risk.

*  Knowledge Creation:   Peer reviewed publications are an indicator of knowledge creation.  Between 1988 and 2001, the U.S. share of science and engineering papers published worldwide dropped from 38 to 31 percent.  Between 1992 and 2001, the U.S. share of citations declined from 52 to 44 percent.[4]

*  R&D Investments:  At its peak, U.S. investment in R&D was 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).  By 2003, this had slipped to 2.6 percent.  Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the trend is reversing.  According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. now ranks sixth in the world, behind Israel, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and Iceland.[5] Korea, Switzerland, and Germany are not far behind, and China is coming on strong.  The EU has established a target to increase investment in R&D activities to 3 percent of GDP by 2010.[6]  To stay competitive, the U.S. must establish ambitious policies and decrease reliance on private sector investment, which now far exceeds federal investment in R&D.[7]

*  The High Tech Economy:  The U.S. share of worldwide high-tech exports has been in a 20-year decline, falling from 31 to 18 percent between 1980 and 2001.  Since that time, the trade balance for high-tech products has fallen into a deficit.[8]

*  Specific High Tech Sectors:  Finally, the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation notes that the U.S. losing its competitive advantage to Asia in a number of key high tech sectors, including nanotechnology, energy, aerospace, information technology, and biotechnology.  I just returned from a trip to China, and I can tell you that my first impression of Shanghai is that I had just arrived in the real-world version of Tomorrowland. 

So where does this leave us and, more importantly, what can we do about it?  The answer lies squarely in the theme of this talk:  building the capacities of our federal R&D enterprise and our nation’s research universities, while increasing the participation of our young people in the STEM fields.  As stated in a recent report by the Business Roundtable,[9] “Past national and state efforts to improve U.S. math and science achievement clearly demonstrate that they cannot be isolated from the need to improve the overall quality and results of the entire U.S. education system, pre-K through 16.â€? 

Let me start with K-12, by giving you examples of approaches taken by both the federal government and the state of California.  At the federal level, the Department of Education’s Teacher Quality Enhancement Program has taken a three-pronged approach to improving the quality of our K-12 teachers:  Partnership Grants that provide funds for teacher preparation, State Grants that encourage states to improve the quality of their teaching force, and Teacher Recruitment Grants that support state and local efforts to recruit highly qualified teachers for high-need areas.

UC Riverside has been fortunate to receive a Partnership Grant for $11.5 million.  The project, known as Copernicus, creates a consortium of four-year and community colleges, local school districts, and businesses for the preparation of highly qualified science teachers.  Focused on enriching teacher quality across a continuum of professional development, Project Copernicus will identify prospective science teachers early, educate them in science and teaching methodologies, and mentor them through their early years of teaching.  Members of the consortium are providing an additional $6.7 million as a cost sharing contribution.  In addition, 40 local businesses have provided donations or discounts, and community colleges in the region have provided 19 summer internships.  The project seeks to substantially increase the number, quality and diversity of the state’s science teachers, and to become a nationally recognized model program for science education. 

The need is great:  In California today, approximately 26% of teachers are not technically qualified to teach mathematics and 38% are not qualified to teach science.   This, in turn, impacts our students.  In 2000, the National Assessment of Educational Progress in science ranked California’s eighth grade students at the bottom of the 44 participating states.  In mathematics, 48% were considered “below basic.â€?[10]

The state has responded with a new Science and Math Initiative, bringing together the University of California, the California State University, a number of private universities, K-12, and business and industry to improve both the supply and quality of science and mathematics teachers in California.  The goal is, by 2010, to annually produce 1,000 or more highly qualified science and mathematics secondary school teachers.  The slogan for this program, “One Thousand Teachers, One Million Minds,â€? illustrates not only the lofty aim of this program, but also the magnitude of the need.  Since the initiative began, more than 700 UC faculty—from the sciences, mathematics, and engineering departments, as well as schools of education—have helped to design a program built on inquiry and research methodology as well as strategies to reach California’s increasingly diverse student population.  Among other things, the program is intended to close what is often perceived to be a “disconnectâ€? between schools of education and math and science departments on university campuses.   

K-12 education is just the first step in building our nation’s STEM workforce.  Too often, the important role of our community colleges is overlooked.  A recent report by the National Academy of Engineering points out that, in 1999 and 2000, 40 percent of the recipients of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering began their higher education in community colleges.[11] The California Council on Science and Technology found similar results, stating that nearly half of science and engineering baccalaureate degrees in California’s public university system were earned by community college transfer students.

Increasing student and parent awareness of community colleges as a pathway to jobs in STEM fields would no doubt attract students who otherwise might not consider such career choices.  For this to succeed, articulation and transfer between community colleges and four-year educational institutions must be improved.  Such partnerships are likely to improve student recruitment and retention at both levels.  Unfortunately, few data are available on educational pathways for community college students; these data are needed to evaluate both student and institutional outcomes.[12]

Providing influential, data-driven policy research is precisely the goal of a brand new initiative called the California Community College Collaborative.  Under the leadership of UC Riverside, the University of California is partnering with the state’s extensive community college system to prepare community college faculty and administrators to be leaders in transforming their own institutions and higher education in our state.  The three primary foci of the collaborative are faculty development, leadership development, and policy development—all based on a comprehensive database.  The target is the largest system of higher education in the world:  Currently, more than 2.5 million students attend California’s 109 two-year public colleges within 72 local community college districts.

That brings us to the level of our 4-year institutions of higher education.  In 1958, the U.S. responded to the launch of Sputnik with passage of the National Defense Education Act, establishing a new federal role in education.  Federal dollars built laboratories, purchased equipment, and altered the quality and quantity of research conducted in U.S. universities.  To develop a highly trained workforce that would ensure our nation’s competitiveness in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA also included funding for loans to college students; graduate scholarships; science, math, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools; and vocational-technical training. 

The time has come for a new National Defense Education Act for the 21st Century.  The Association of American Universities (representing the top 1½ percent of our nation’s institutions of higher education) is calling for such an investment.  Further, the Department of Defense requested $10.3 million in FY06 to fund scholarships and fellowships at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, in the critical STEM fields.  A new Presidential Math and Science Scholars Fund would establish a public-private partnership to provide $100 million in Pell Grants to low income, college-eligible students to study math or science. 

Other federal agencies are following suit.  NASA’s Higher Education Division is working to increase the overall capacity of higher education to address STEM fields through a variety of creative programs.  Among them, NASA has developed programs to catalyze institutional development to better prepare colleges and universities to compete for NASA research awards; to increase the pool of qualified faculty who can compete for such awards; to build connections, through partnership and consortium awards, that provide institutions of higher education with better bridges for students who want to pursue careers in STEM fields; to coordinate NASA-sponsored university research activities with teacher preparation and training programs; and to provide fellowship and scholarships that will attract students to NASA disciplines. 

Other efforts are focused at increasing the number and quality of faculty in STEM fields, particularly among women and underrepresented minorities who serve as role models for our students.  The National Science Foundation has led the way with a number of exceptional models that are beginning to produce results.  Through its ADVANCE program, NSF provides funding for many ambitious programs around the country to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.  Awards are being granted in the areas of institutional transformation, leadership, and partnerships for adaptation, implementation, and dissemination.[13]  The American Council on Education (ACE) has likewise assumed a prominent role, with a recent study called “An Agenda for Excellence:  Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty Careers.â€?[14] This report recognizes that lack of family friendly policies has been a deterrent for many women who might otherwise pursue careers in academia, and recommends policies to remove the obstacles that often prevent them from doing so. 

I’d like to conclude with a quote from Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and past president of Brown University.  In an essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Gregorian stated, “A major failure of our higher-education system is that it has largely come to serve as a job-readiness program.  Instead of helping students learn and grow as individuals, find meaning in their lives, or understand their role in society, college has become a chaotic maze where students try to pick up something useful as they search for the exit: the degree needed to obtain decent employment.â€?[15]

One consequence of this is revealed by a student who works in my office at UCR.  An exceptionally bright young woman who majors in biology, she claims that she and other friends who are science majors are frequently asked by their peers,  “What are you going to do with that?â€?  The implication is that, unless a degree leads to a specific job—teacher, nurse, attorney, business person—why bother?  And that is a failure of all of us.  Students—and, yes, their well-meaning parents—do not see a clear pathway from the STEM fields to a promising career.  The irony, as I stated earlier, is that the number of STEM positions in the U.S. is growing at five times the rate of other occupations.  We must do more to excite students, from an early age, about the opportunities of science and technology and to arouse in them the curiosity and passion that has produced some of the finest minds and greatest advancements the world has seen.   

To do this, we must provide them a solid foundation and inspiration from highly qualified teachers at the K-12 level, give them the option of entering STEM fields either through the community college system or a four-year institution, provide the financial incentives to embark on such a path, provide faculty role models and, in the end, offer a curriculum that, in the words of Vartan Gregorian, “…understands the nature of knowledge, its unity, its varieties, its limitations, and its uses and abuses…â€? 

This is no small task, but then the stakes are high.