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Assessing Participation and Advancement in Engineering and Science of Individuals and Institutions Underrepresented as Federal Grantees

Abstract The National Science Foundation has expressed strong interest in broadening the participation of grantees from population groups and institutions underrepresented in its grantee pool. We suggest metrics by which to gauge progress in broadening participation.

Background The Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), has long encouraged the NSF to increase the diversity of its grantees, with the overall goal of including more women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with disabilities than are currently present in the science and engineering fields. The NSF has sponsored workshops that focus on increasing participation by individuals in these groups in the fields of science and engineering[1]. More specifically, the CEOSE 2004 report to Congress included two specific suggestions targeting NSF grantees and the ways in which they approach issues of diversity [2]. First, the committee recommended the NSF strengthen its appraisals of the programs encouraging diversity, through activities such as continuing the data collection and analysis of participation by individuals from these populations, developing goals and methods of tracking and motivating their participation, and incorporating outcome measures into NSF programs. Second, the committee recommended continuation of NSF policies that require principal investigators and institutions to consider diversity as part of the Broader Impacts criterion of grant proposals, specifically how the grantee proposes to “broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)” [3] p. 22

Responding to these challenges involves two goals; (1) granting funds to increased numbers of women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with disabilities, and (2) granting funds to increased numbers of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) as well as other institutions not strongly represented among NSF grantees, such as community colleges and baccalaureate institutions. In addition, NSF principal investigators at the all educational levels should demonstrate their efforts to increase diversity. To investigate these policies and goals, efforts are underway to develop methods of analyzing the participation and advancement of underrepresented individuals and institutions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in NSF supported projects.

Project Overview Analyzing the participation and advancement of underrepresented individuals and institutions requires a review of measures of diversity used in both prior research in the STEM fields and in the business, government, or education fields. This literature review uncovered several metrics for measuring diversity in a wide variety of settings as well as questions to be asked each principal investigator, school, school district, department, college, and institution regarding their research and research capacity as well as education and education capacity. Questions were classified into those to be asked about individuals from populations underrepresented in STEM, such as women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with disabilities, and those to be

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Cady, E., & Fortenberry, N. (2007, June), Assessing Participation And Advancement In Engineering And Science Of Individuals And Institutions Underrepresented As Federal Grantees Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2573