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Understanding Federal STEM Education Initiatives

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Engineering and Public Policy Division (EPP) Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Engineering and Public Policy Division (EPP)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48191

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Paper Authors

biography

Jessica Centers The MITRE Corporation Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8171-3448

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Jessica Centers is a communications engineer at the MITRE Corporation. She joined MITRE in 2023 after completing her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a focus on signal and information processing at Duke University. Upon beginning her role at MITRE, she also completed her Master of Arts in Technology Ethics and Science Policy. Prior to graduate school, she received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering in 2018. She currently splits her time between STEM workforce and education policy work and research in radar signal processing and communication systems. Jessica has additional interests in the areas of engineering education pedagogy, coding theory, physics-motivated machine learning, technology ethics, and computational social science.

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Michael A Balazs

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Titilayo Ogunyale

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Abstract

Unsurprisingly, the United States government actively recognizes the need to support initiatives in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in order to remain a global leader in discovery and innovation. For this reason, the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) released a five-year strategic plan in 2018 describing nation-wide goals surrounding STEM education and the strategic pathways through which these goals could be achieved. It is this strategic plan that recognizes that even though increased financial support is helpful, collaboration, purposeful program development, and investment transparency are also key to achieving the goals set forth in the plan. Through an analysis of the Federal STEM ecosystem, the work reported by interagency working groups within CoSTEM, and the Federal STEM Investments Inventory data, which has been made publicly available via annual progress reports, we provide insight into how Federal STEM education efforts have made progress towards its three goals of improved STEM literacy, increased diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and STEM workforce development. Additionally, we consider what this analysis means in the context of the greater STEM community. With the STEM Education Strategic Plan’s tenure coming to an end, this paper concludes by encouraging discussion regarding the future of Federal STEM education initiatives informed by the last five years’ progress and potential shortcomings.

Centers, J., & Balazs, M. A., & Ogunyale, T. (2024, June), Understanding Federal STEM Education Initiatives Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48191

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