Technologia del Mundo
“Very large numbers of Latinos enter community colleges and test into remedial or developmental math,” Dowd said. “It means that they can’t earn credits that will transfer toward a bachelor’s degree by taking those classes. The credits may or may not count toward an associate’s degree.”
A policy brief from the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington, D.C., “Why Access Matters: The Community College Student Body,” highlights an important role two-year schools can play with additional resources and attention.
“Community colleges have historically enrolled approximately half of all undergraduate students of color. Community col- leges are not just enrolling students of color—they are provid- ing access to success,” according to the brief.
The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. (NACME), a White Plains, N.Y.-based STEM advocacy organiza- tion, also trumpets a closer coupling between two- and four- year colleges in STEM, concluding that “to tap the richest pool of talent, engineering colleges need to develop strategies to access community college students and enable their successful transfer to four-year engineering programs.”
NACME’s President and CEO Irving Pressley McPhail, in tes- timony March 22, to the House Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, described the math gap in the nation’s nearly 1,200 community colleges as “particularly onerous.”
The conundrum for educational policymakers is that the Hispanic/Latino population also is the fastest growing demo- graphic in the United States, responsible largely for overall
www.hispanicengineer.com
population growth. Census figures project Hispanic/Latinos will comprise 18 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2018 and a third of the U.S. population by 2050.
NACME says without equivocation in a July 2011 research brief, “Latinos in Engineering,” that the “future health” of U.S. engineering will depend on the success at which Hispanics/ Latinos are recruited to the field. Hispanic/Latino students earned 8 percent of the nation’s engineering degrees in 2009, according to NACME.
Dowd noted that the problem of Hispanics/Latinos and STEM education appears to be a policy prerogative in Washington. The Obama administration has pushed a number of STEM policy initiatives, such as the “Educate to Innovate” campaign in December 2009, which seeks to inspire minority students to excel in science and mathematics over the next decade. Additionally, Congress, through healthcare reform legislation, is seeking to strengthen Hispanic-serving institutions, colleges or universities with a student body that is at least 25 percent Hispanic, through $1 billion in funding to these schools over 10 years.
Dowd said the additional resources will help, but the starting point for STEM success has to be in the community-college system, where young Hispanic/Latino college students today are clustered.
“What are our alternatives other than making that pathway work?” Dowd said. “We don’t have good alternatives. We need to turn to the community college as the pathway to STEM bachelor’s degrees and ultimately graduate degrees for Latino students. There’s not a better alternative.”
HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | 2012 15
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