“We do need to do better. Too many of our children, particularly too many of our girls and minorities, are steering away from sci- ence and engineering and we’re trying to address that. The president has set two over- arching goals relevant to science and technol- ogy, engineering and math education. One is that American students will move from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math over the next decade and the other one is that by 2020 America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”
ence and technology, engineering and math education. One is that American students will move from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math over the next decade and the other one is that by 2020 America will once again have the highest propor- tion of college graduates in the world. But within those overarching goals there have actually been three priori- ties in addition that the president has articulated. One is increasing science and technology, engineering and math literacy, so all students can think critically in those domains. Second is improving the quality of math and sci- ence teaching. The third is expanding science technology, engineering and math education and career opportu- nities for underrepresented groups, including women and minorities. All of that is important and we are working on all of that.
USBE: How important are the na- tion’s historically black colleges and universities in filling this void?
Dr. Holdren: I think they’re very important. And clearly they are important to ensuring that we have a diverse and well-prepared science, technology, engineering and math workforce. The nation’s historically black colleges and universities rep-
18 USBE&IT I Deans Edition SPRING 2010
resent less than 3 percent of all the institutions of higher education in this country and yet they enroll 13 percent of the entire African American under- graduate enrollment and they award 20 percent of all the undergraduate degrees awarded to African Americans in the United States. So they’re very important. Data from the Department of Education also indicates that a larger percentage of students at the historically black colleges and univer- sities are selecting engineering and science majors than African Americans at other institutions are doing. So they’re particularly important in this domain we’re talking about of sci- ence and technology engineering and math education. These institutions represent, of course, an opportunity to continue on improving the number and quality of their degree programs and we have a number of federal grant programs as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education –almost an alphabet soup of projects and programs aimed at supporting the historically black col- leges and universities in this impor- tant work they are doing.
USBE: What explains the HBCUs’ relative success, given that many of the most academically prepared
black students appear to be choos- ing historically white schools, which tend to be better funded?
Dr. Holdren: Historically black colleges and universities have a high success rate in graduating the stu- dents they enroll, which is probably attributable to a number of institu- tional strengths that they have, includ- ing supportive campus environments, and rigorous educational experiences that often include undergraduate research experiences for the students in the science, technology, engineer- ing and math fields. One of the other relevant statistics that we have is that the students are more likely to enroll full-time at historically black colleges and universities than African Ameri- can students at other universities. So there’s been a fair amount of research on this and it’s plain that the histori- cally black colleges and universities offer a number of characteristics that are enabling them to do well with the students they enroll.
USBE: President Obama, both in the stimulus plan and in his first budget, has pushed for big increas- es in federal spending on scientific research. Describe what Americans should expect the payoff to be and when will they see it?
Dr. Holdren: We know that for decades that the biggest drivers of increases in the nation’s productiv- ity and economic growth have been science, technology and innovation. The estimates of what fraction of our economic growth is attributable to science, technology and innovation range from 35 percent to as high as 80 percent, depending on who’s do- ing the analysis. This is a continuing process. We have to continue to feed it by continuing to invest in research and development and continuing to create conditions that motivate the private sector to invest in research and development. When you say when do we see the payoff, we’ve been see- ing the payoff for decades. The payoff for the increases in federal support for science and technology that the Obama administration has brought forward will be seen over a time scale ranging from a couple of years to a couple of decades. That is always the way it has been. For example, in the stimulus package, there was over $18 billion for research and development.
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