BUILDING
COMMUNITIES OF
STAKEHOLDERS FOR
STEM RESEARCH
AND EDUCATION
ORAU Annual Meeting -- March 22, 2012
Elizabeth S. Boylan
Program Director
STEM Higher Education
STEM HIGHER
EDUCATION
To improve the quality
and increase the diversity
of higher education in STEM
.
Elizabeth S. Boylan
Sloan’s STEM Higher Education Program
Education of Individuals
from
Underrepresented Groups
• Minority Ph.D. Scholarship Program
• Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership
• Projects supporting individuals from
underrepresented groups
Professional Advancement
of Individuals from
Underrepresented Groups
• Professional advancement of individuals
from underrepresented groups who are in
faculty and academic leadership positions
Interactions
and
Synergies
Student Performance & Retention:
Institutional Analysis and Interventions
• STEM student recruitment & retention studies
• The science of learning science
• Faculty/academic leader development to
support achievement and retention of students
from all groups
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3/22/12
Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Student Migration in and
out of STEM Fields
CUSTEMS
Consortium for Undergraduate STEM Success
Presented by Lynne Molter, AAAS, February 18, 2012
CUSTEMS Goals
• Develop appropriate and effective ways to
analyze data for a wide range of institutions
• Identify patterns of and longitudinal
changes in retention, migration, and
attrition
• Establish a self-sustaining group of
institutions who are committed to adapting
their strategies for successful educational
outcomes for STEM students
CUSTEMS 5
Data Analysis
•
Office of Educational Assessment at the
University of Washington
--performs standardized analyses, including descriptive tables,
charts, and graphs
•
Office of Institutional Research at
Swarthmore
--performs decision tree and cluster analyses, and uses other
visualization techniques; it also responds to specialized requests
from participants
CUSTEMS 6
CUSTEMS Participants
(About 40 institutions)
•
Public universities, including Thurgood Marshall
College Fund members
• Private universities
• Liberal arts colleges
CUSTEMS 7
Course, Grade, and GPA Data
•
Grade in gateway course vs. retention
•
Graduation GPA vs. retention
o By Major
o Overall
•
Disaggregated by discipline; gender;
under-represented minority, first
generation, socioeconomic status, etc.
CUSTEMS 8
Sample 1 Student Migration Patterns Based on Grade
in Gateway Course by STEM Discipline and Gender
CUSTEMS 9
THE CENSUS OF MARINE LIFE
Program director: Jesse Ausubel
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



Decade-long (2000-2010) program to assess and explain the
diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life
>2700 scientists, >80 countries, >540 field expeditions
Approximately $80 million from Sloan toward total project costs
of $650 million (12%)
Expansion of the Encyclopedia of Life:
>100,000 marine species now have EOL pages

Products:
3100 publications, ~250 PhD theses, books, films, artwork
Elizabeth S. Boylan
Library of “DNA Barcodes” for species identification
-- about 35,000 marine species barcoded to date
Barcodes Showed Mislabelings as More Expensive Fish
Red Snapper
Red Snapper
“Red Snapper” also identified via DNA bar-coding as:
Slender Pinjalo (SE Asia) and Acadian Redfish (North Atlantic)
“Red Snapper”
“Red Snapper”
DNA ID: Nile Perch
DNA ID -- Nile perch
FishBase: D Flescher
FishBase: John Casselman
Range map: FishBase
Range map: FishBase
to scale
Source: Stoeckle & Strauss
DNA Learning Center
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
www.urbanbarcodeproject.org
ALFRED P. SLOAN
FOUNDATION
MISSION AND
GOALS
To support original research and education
related to STEM fields,
economic performance,
and the quality of American life
Through
--community building
--data storage and accessibility
--focus on goals and metrics of success
--improved public understanding of science and technology
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