Push for Big Change in Graduate STEM Ed

U.S. graduate education in science, technology, engineering and math is, in many ways, the “gold standard” for the world. But it can and must better prepare graduates for a changing science landscape and multiple careers. It should also be more transparent in terms of where graduates end up working.

So says a major new report on the future of graduate STEM education from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The report was drafted by the Committee on Revitalizing Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century, chaired by Alan Leshner, chief executive officer emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“We believe that students have a right to know what the outcomes have been for students who went before them,” Leshner said during a news conference on the report Tuesday in Washington. Moreover, he said, programs should use outcomes data they gather to shape the graduate experience for current and future students.

The Association of American Universities in September called on all member institutions to offer current and prospective graduate students information about student demographics, average time to finish a degree, financial support and career paths and outcomes both inside and outside academe. A small minority of institutions already make such information accessible, but AAU said it wanted a broader -- if still voluntary -- commitment to transparency.

AAU’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, served on the National Academies’ report committee. She said Tuesday that now is the right time to push forward with those expectations. The report also suggests that federal and state funding agencies act as enforcers by requiring the institutions they support to collect and make such data easily available.

As for adopting the report’s recommendations over all, committee member Keith Yamamoto, vice chancellor for science policy and strategy at the University of California, San Francisco, said that “cultural change is difficult.” But all it takes is a few institutions around the country to decide that “this is an important thing to be doing” for others to feel the “need to respond in some way,” he said. In other words, peer pressure.

Student Focused and Action Oriented

The National Academies last charged the committee with examining graduate STEM education in 1995. This time, the committee worked for 18 months to examine data and hold focus groups and discussions with everyone from students to policy makers. The resultant report is exceptionally action oriented and student focused -- it urges programs to place a greater emphasis on mental health support for graduate students, for example. Perhaps most crucially, the report proposes core competencies that should be at the center of any graduate degree program in STEM.

To continue reading: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/30/report-urges-program-data-transparency-and-focus-core-competencies-graduate-stem