Change, Flip, and Listen David Asai asaid@hhmi.org.

Change, Flip, and Listen

David Asaiasaid@hhmi.org

Terminal Island

http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history/files/import/46084-japanesefishermen.jpg

Fish Harbor, Terminal Island

Sadaichi Asai(b. 1914)

Race matters

1. …is a property of a group, and so can benefit a field that depends on groups.

2. …adds different perspectives, interpretations, tools.

3. …trumps ability when the problem is difficult and when there is a large number of problem-solvers.

Scott Page, “The Difference,” 2007Princeton University Press

Diversity produces excellence

An Opportunity and a Challenge

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Opportunity: increasingly diverse talent pool

“Majority Minority”:

• All U.S. by 2042

• 18 yrs and younger by 2018

Challenge: we fail to take advantage of the diverse talent pool

NSF data for 2006, from Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation, National Academies, 2011.

U.S. talent pool

28.5%URM

Scientific workforce

White + Asian

URM

9.1% URM

NSF WEBCASPAR (2000-05)

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Undergraduate years are critical

G. Huang et al., 2000, Entry and persistence of women and minorities in college science and engineering education, US. Dept. Education, National Center for Education Statistics

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Complete Persist Switch Drop out

URMs leave STEM 2X rate of whites and Asians

Three suggestions

1. Change the metaphor

2. Flip the formula

3. Listen to difference

easy

hard

1. Change the metaphor (easy)

“Light at the end of the tunnel”

“Domino theory”

Metaphors can be powerful

“Fiscal cliff”

“Red zone”

http://www.sadeem.ae/Pipeline_at_Kuparuk.jpg

“Pipeline”

STEM Pipeline is Leaking Badly*

David Marcy, Cal Lutheran

Administrator, HHMI

High School

University, B.S.

Graduate school, Ph.D.

Post-doc (x2)

Professor (x2)

Many students today….High school

Community collegeWork

Military

Baccalaureate

Next???

Watershed

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/SAR_Map.jpg

Watershed

• Tributaries from many different sources, different environments, different pathways, different velocities.

• Boundaries between inputs are not always exact and can change with conditions.

• Outcomes are many and diverse.

STEM watershed

• Tributaries:– family-centric – transfer students– traditional

• Outcomes:– one touch– allied professions– specialists

2. Flip the formula(medium difficulty)

STEM business model:

1. High interest – 40% of all entering freshmen

2. “Gateway” courses

3. Research

4. Focus on small number of outcomes – medicine or PhD

- “weed out” 60% all, - “weed out” 80% URMs

- expensive, - emphasizes selection

Flip the formula:

• Active learning is superior to “teach by telling”– Scott Freeman et al., 2014. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.

• Course-based research experiences (CREs)– scale – early– emphasize development of potential instead of

selection of past accomplishments

Mycobacterium smegmatis

GenBank

HHMI SEA PHAGES course

Accomplishments:

• > 2,000 students at 73 schools (2013-14)• students make scientific discoveries:

– > 48,000 genes (865 novel genes), 9 new clusters– 82% of mycobacteriophage GenBank sequences

contributed by SEA-PHAGES students– 17 publications (10 with undergrad co-authors)

• students do better in class • students stay in science

Jordan et al., 2014. mBio 5: e01051-13

www.hhmi.org/sea

Goal: 5,000 students per year

CostsApprentice-based summer research: $5,500 - $10,000 per student (excludes faculty salaries)

SEA-PHAGES: approx. $200 - $250 per student for supplies, EM, sequencing (excludes salaries of faculty, TAs)

Intro lab courses at 17 “very high” research universities: $56 per student (excludes salaries of faculty, TAs). Range: $10 - $337 per student.

$56. Flip the formula.

Introductory courses = opportunity to make a difference

3. Listen to difference(difficult)

Practice, practice, practice

What’s important in mentoring?

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MentorsMentees

Byars-Winston, Benbow, Leverett, Pfund, Branchaw, Owen, 2013.

Race Gender Talk about difference

Intent vs. Impact

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Faculty privilege

Biology 231 is the third course in our four-semester core curriculum for Biology majors. In addition, many pre-professional students from other majors, like XXXX, also take BIOL 231. Our course is a rigorous attempt to link molecular structure with biological function. We first focus on the macromolecules of the cell, including proteins, membranes, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates; in each case the message is that structure leads to function. We then discuss in quantitative detail the energetics of cell biology, including membrane potentials, the use of ATP in coupled reactions, the metabolism of glucose and oxidative phosphorylation to produce ATP, and photosynthesis. Then we put some of these pieces together, discussing in detail selected aspects of cell biology, including signal transduction, cotranslational insertion of membrane/secreted proteins, intracellular trafficking of membrane bounded organelles, and cell motility. All exams are answered with short essays or calculations (no calculators permitted!). The emphasis is on precise problem solving. For many, BIOL 231 proves to be the “weed-out” course.

Our course is a rigorous attempt to link molecular structure with biological function.

All exams are answered with short essays or calculations (no calculators permitted!). The emphasis is on precise problem solving. For many, BIOL 231 proves to be the “weed-out” course.

“Majority rules”

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Individual vs. group

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/blogger2wp/Gender-SexismMath.png

Identity defined by group

What’s in a name?

“I’m not prejudiced”

1. Unintended bias in the workplace….

• Emily…Anne…Jill…Allison…Laurie…Sarah… Meredith…Carrie…Kristen…Todd…Neil… Geoffrey…Brett…Brendan…Greg…Matthew… Jay…Brad

• Aisha…Keisha…Tamika…Lakisha…Tanisha… Latoya…Kenya…Latonya…Ebony…Rasheed… Tremayne…Kareem…Darnell…Tyrone…Hakim…Jamal…Leroy…Jermaine

M Bertrand and S. Mullainathan, 2004.Poverty Action Lab 3: 1-27.

2. What about faculty?• 6,500 faculty, 89 disciplines, 259 universities• Email request to meet to discuss grad school:

– Brad Anderson, Meredith Roberts– Lamar Washington, Keisha Thomas– Carlos Lopez, Gabriella Rodriguez– Raj Singh, Sonali Desai– Chang Huang, Mei Chen

• Whether faculty member agreed to meet “student”

K.L Milkman, M. Akinoa, D. Chugh, 2014.

Faculty are biased too…

• Faculty ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from white males

• Response rate decreased with:– Higher-paying disciplines– Private elite universities

• Response rate the same regardless of race and gender of faculty respondent

Milkman et al., 2014

3. What about scientists?

• Application for lab manager position• Fictitious male or female applicant• Evaluations by lab PIs:

– Competence– Hireability– Worthy of mentoring– Starting salary

Moss-Racusin et al., 2012. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109: 16474-16479.

Competence

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Scientists are biased too…

Moss-Racusin et al., 2012. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109: 16474-16479

“This is for your own good.”

“mismatch hypothesis”

“…as a result of the mismatching, many blacks and Hispanics who likely would have excelled at less elite schools are placed in a position where underperformance is all but inevitable because they are less academically prepared than the white and Asian students with whom they must compete.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, 2013concurring opinion, Fisher v. U Texas

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Testing the “mismatch hypothesis”M. Kurlaender and E. Grodsky. 2013. “Mismatch and the paternalistic justification

for selective college admissions.” Sociology of Education 86: 294-310.

• University of California– Elite: Berkeley, San Diego, UCLA (30% acceptance)– Not-quite-elite: Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa

Barbara, Santa Cruz (59% acceptance)• 2004, “Guaranteed Transfer Option” (GTO)

(2,300 students)• 491 chose to attend elite campus

• GPAs of GTO students statistically same as elite students.

• GTO students no more or less likely to drop out of elite schools.

• GTO students less likely to drop out than peers who chose non-elite schools.

• Mismatch effects no greater for minorities than for whites and Asians.

Findings….

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Sonia_Sotomayor(15).jpg

“…And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes….Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, ‘No, where are you really from?’….Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: ‘I do not belong here.’”

Schuette v. Coalition…(BAMN), 2014. Justice Sotomayor, dissenting

Race matters