Roe Lecturer Discusses Need to Keep Students on the STEM Path

Roe Lecturer Discusses Need to Keep Students on the STEM Path Roe Lecturer Discusses Need to Keep Students on the STEM Path The 2015 Ralph Coats Roe Medal recipient, Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, PhD, was the featured presenter at the ASME Annual Meetings Ralph Coats Roe Keyelende Luncheon on June 7. Dr. Hrabowski has been the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimora County, since 1992.During his presentation at the Annual Meeting earlier this month, this years Ralph Coats Roe Medal recipient, Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, PhD, discussed how childhood experiences can directly influence ones personal and professional life choices later in life. A civil rights crusader who was arrested at the age of 12 for marching in the Childrens Crusade in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, Dr. Hrabowskis early life as an activist has certainly inspired his current career as a STEM education champion, particularly for minority students.Hrabowski, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore Co unty, will receive the 2015 Ralph Coe Medal at the ASME zwischenstaatlich Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition this November. The award recognizes outstanding contributions toward a better public understanding and appreciation of the engineers worth to contemporary society. In addition to serving as president of UMBC since 1992, Hrabowski was selected by President Barak Obama to chair the recently created Presidents Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He also chaired the National Academies committee that produced the recent report, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation Americas Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. Hrabowski has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine, one of Americas best leaders by U.S. News and World Report, and recipient of both the Cargenie Corporations Academic Leadership Award and the Heinz Award for contributions improving the human condition.Whether yo u know it or not, much of what you do every day has been influenced by things that happened to you as a child, Hrabowski said toward the beginning of his dynamic and thought-provoking presentation. I was privileged to grow up in an educated home with old-fashioned values involving religion and faith, and two hard-working parents who constantly were talking to me about my future. Ill never forget spending time during that civil rights period of going through a peaceful demonstration, of spending time in jail with Dr. King because I wanted a better education. And I remember the most important lessons of all To never allow myself to be considered a victim, to always believe in the highest possible standards, and to not allow other people to define who I am. (Left to right) Susan Skemp, chair of the ASME Foundations board of directors, Ralph Coats Roe Medalist Freeman Hrabowski, III, ASME Executive Director Thomas Loughlin, and Immediate Past President J. Robert Sims at the presentat ion of the Roe Medal Certificate at the keynote luncheon. It never occurred to me that one day I could possibly be president of a university that has students from 150 countries, he continued. I could never have imagined standing here today receiving such an award because, first of all, when I graduated from high school, I had never met an engineer. I didnt know it was possible to become an engineer. I didnt know what an engineer did.Hrabowski did understand and enjoy mathematics, however an interest passed on from his parents, who were teachers, and fostered by a school principal who was also a mathematician. I knew what I wanted to do all my life and that was to teach math, he said Ive always loved and gotten goosebumps doing math. I learned one day that at the base of engineering was math and physics. I loved physics I was a physics minor. I said, These engineers must be okay. They like math, too. In later years I began to understand more and more about the engineering. As president of a von rang research university, Hrabowski is fully aware of the difficulty keeping both pre-college and university students on a STEM career path. Although the percentage of college educated people in the United States has risen from 10 percent in the early 1960s to 30 percent today, a challenge remains.I chaired the National Academys Committee on STEM, he said. Only 5 percent of 24 year olds in America have college degrees in STEM. In Europe, its actually 10 percent. And heres the biggest news, the fact is two-thirds of (students) in this country who begin with a major in STEM will leave it within the first two years, and, quite frankly, everybody says its a K-12 problem. What we saw in the data was this The higher the test scores, the more prestigious the university, often the greater the probability the student leaves within the first two years. They move from the sciences to something thats non-quantitative, because in America we think of the first two years of S TEM as weed out courses. So the question becomes, What are the things we can do to be creative to help more students to have the kinds of experiences that will lead to more students... to have careers in those fields? Deanne Bell (left), founder of ASMEs recent Future Engineers 3D Space Challenge partnership with NASA and member of the ASME Foundations board of directors, and Sydney Vernon, the junior winner of the inaugural Future Engineers Challenge, during a discussion of the ASME Foundations STEM education initiatives that followed Dr. Hrabowskis presentation.And while he left educators in the audience to ponder that problem, Hrabowski presented what he saw as the very biggest problem facing not only the United States, but the world inequality. I want you to think about how you can help the bottom quarter in our society, not only in terms of job creation, but in getting disadvantaged students interested in becoming educated, he said. Engineers need to participate and help in solving the problems, he added. notlage as technicians, but as thought leaders.Hrabowskis presentation was followed by program highlighting the various STEM-related educational outreach programs currently being sponsored by the ASME Foundation, which also supports the Ralph Coats Roe Medal and Luncheon. Noha El-Ghobashy, executive director of the ASME Foundation, introduced a short video featuring footage from the recent ASME Innovation Showcase (IShow) in Pune, India. Deanne Bell, founder of ASMEs recent Future Engineers 3D Space Challenge partnership with NASA and member of the ASME Foundations board of directors, then hosted a discussion with three participants in recent ASME Foundation-sponsored STEM programs recent graduate Jaimie Nagode, recipient of 2014-2015 Kenneth Andrew Roe Scholarship Sydney Vernon, the junior winner of the inaugural Future Engineers 3D Space Challenge and Raymond Tran, a math teacher who has been integrating the new ASME INSPIRE curriculum into his classroom at Joseph Cavallaro Middle School in Brooklyn, N.Y.