A Competitive System: Achieving Diversity and Quality in STEM Through Graduate Student Recruitment

• In Event: Issues of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in the Recruitment, Retention, and Curriculum Within Graduate Education

Abstract

Various stakeholders are working to broaden and diversify participation in STEM at all educational levels. Our work highlights such efforts at the doctoral level and applies a critical lens to processes of recruiting a quality and diverse population of graduate students. We foreground qualitative analyses of interviews with faculty and staff in STEM programs across the United States in which we explored dispositions toward and strategies applied in the recruitment of underrepresented minority students and women in STEM graduate programs. We supplement these data with descriptive quantitative data that illustrate the gender and ethnic representation both amongst national STEM doctoral recipients and also within enrollment at each institution where the qualitative interviews were conducted.

Authors

• Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz, Fresno Pacific University

• Chelsea Haines Lyles, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• David Knight, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Timothy J Kinoshita, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Maura J. Borrego, The University of Texas at Austin

• Nathan Hyungsok Choe, The Ohio State University

• Maya Denton, The University of Texas