Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEM Self-Study

Student preparation emerged as a barrier in both quantitative and qualitative data. At RUC, admissions are classified as selective, with a 76% acceptance rate. Students are not admitted to specific programs but may indicate their major choice on their application. Between 2017 and 2021, first time students enrolling at RUC had an average GPA of 3.41, those who indicated STEM majors had an average of 3.44.  In the 2021 admissions cycle, RUC went “test optional.” Prior to that change, the five-year (2016-2020) average SAT score for enrolled first-time students was 1084 overall but was 1115 for students selecting STEM majors. In interview data, faculty indicated that pre-university systemic inequalities created a situation in which students may arrive at RUC underprepared and with underdeveloped STEM identities.

Both students and faculty indicated a need for more financial options for lab and research work to offset the need to engage in external work. Funding was often seen as a way to reduce external responsibilities for students.

Pedagogy was the main perceived barrier to success in STEM among students, and a major theme in faculty data. During interviews, students expressed a desire for more courses, professors to meet students where they are in their learning, more support and feedback, and less independent learning. We examined our data in the context of effective teaching practices using the NSSE to further explore whether instruction posed a barrier to STEM student success. NSSE consists of nine items regarding instructor practices such as “clearly explained course goals,” “reviewed and summarized key ideas or concepts,” and “taught in a way that aligns with how you prefer to learn.” RUC received about 10% lower scores on measures of effective teaching relative to comparator schools. Comparing these scores between STEM majors and non-STEM majors at RUC, STEM majors reported an average of 5% lower scores than their non-STEM counterparts. When disaggregated by race and ethnicity within the STEM majors, there was little variance, suggesting that STEM majors report lower scores on effective teaching across racial and ethnic groups.

External responsibilities, such as job and familial responsibilities, were also identified as a major barrier to success in STEM by both students and faculty.  RUC’s student body is composed of working-class students who balance multiple competing priorities. Relative to other schools with an R2 Carnegie designation, RUC students routinely report on the NSSE that they are spending significantly more time on off-campus work and providing care for dependents.  At RUC, roughly 1 in 3 students reported working between 11 and 30 hours per week across both STEM and non-STEM fields. When disaggregating the data for STEM students, we found that African American students in STEM fields spent more time providing care for dependents than other racial and ethnic groups. Time spent in off-campus work was similar across all groups in STEM.

Students often cited course difficulty as a barrier to success in STEM. Recognizing that STEM material in new classes builds on previous material, students expressed wanting more opportunities to review and digest challenging material and connect their learning to real-life.

Faculty cited student engagement as a barrier to success in STEM, often while also acknowledging that students have external responsibilities that may compete for time or may have disparate preparatory experiences when entering the classroom.

For faculty and students, STEM identity was most often described as “seeing oneself as a scientist,” while developing the skills and confidence to perform successfully in that role. Primarily, students saw the lack of development of a STEM identity as a major barrier to DEI and wanted more racial, gender, and LGBTQIA+ representation in faculty and curricula. We found that for students, STEM identity is closely tied to their perceptions of DEI in STEM, while for faculty, STEM identity was seen as integral across both practical perspectives and to promote DEI.

Regarding DEI effort and training, faculty overwhelmingly felt DEI in STEM was important, acknowledged the need for more DEI initiatives and training in STEM, and expressed a desire to improve and change their practices. Faculty also indicated a lack of training as a barrier to integrating DEI in their teaching practice. Students acknowledged the importance of DEI and the value of the diversity of their student body. They also felt that Rutgers University and the Camden campus made enough effort towards DEI but felt that there could be more effort to support DEI specifically in STEM at RUC.

Both students and faculty indicated the lack of gender, racial, and LGBTQIA+ representation among STEM faculty as a barrier to promoting DEI in STEM. They also cited a need for funding to increase diversity among student researchers. Students particularly identified current racial and gender diversity among students as an asset to STEM at RUC but noted the lack of Black and African American professors as a barrier.

These attitudes regarding representation also reflect shifts in the racial and ethnic composition of STEM programs at RUC between 2017 and 2021. In fall 2017, 44.3% of students with STEM as a first or second major identified as White. By fall 2021, that number dropped to 29.4%. In part, this demographic shift reflects the overall 44% decline of enrollment of White students. Meanwhile, African American student enrollment in STEM programs have remained mostly unchanged. Hispanic STEM student enrollment increased by 13% and Asian student enrollment grew by 16%.

Students and faculty also discussed broader systemic institutional inequality and racism in the context of the larger institution and STEM departments. Faculty also felt that there was a lack of effort related to DEI, little to no training in DEI, and a lack of Black and African American faculty representation and women in leadership positions. Faculty also identified that systemic inequalities experienced by students prior to matriculation influence student preparedness and development of STEM identity.

 Institutional data support the presence of racial disparities in academic preparedness that are likely driven by racial and socioeconomic inequities in K-12. Upon disaggregating the STEM major admissions data, we found that over the last five years the average GPA for African American students was 3.30 and lower than the STEM average of 3.44, while White, Asian, and Hispanic students averaged between 3.50 and 3.53. Analysis of disaggregated SAT scores revealed that among the STEM majors, African American and Hispanic students’ five-year averages were 1056 and 1054 respectively, while White and Asian students average SAT scores were 1151 and 1170 respectively. Nearly 75% of African American students entered in the bottom half of the class in terms of GPA and SAT scores.

We developed interactive dashboards based on our institutional data to further examine equity gaps in student performance at global and individual course levels to identify systematic inequities in student grading. We uncovered a persistent gap in semesterly GPAs and credit completion ratios among students from African American and Hispanic students, as well as large gaps in the proportion of these students who receive grades of D, F, and W (DFW) in STEM courses relative to their peers. 

For semester GPA, the gap was roughly .3 to .5 grade points between students from African American and Hispanic backgrounds relative to their White peers. The gap for credit completion was between .5 and 1 credit earned per semester. Compounded over time, this means that African American and Hispanic students graduate roughly one to two semesters later than their White peers, a finding that was also borne out in the data regarding graduation rates for students in STEM.  

At the course level, equity gaps were particularly pronounced for STEM courses, in general, and introductory courses, specifically. For example, the General Biology I course had an overall DFW rate of 20% between 2019 and 2021, but disaggregation, revealed that the DFW rate among students from HEG-STEM was 4X higher than that of their White and Asian peers.

These disparities have implications for students’ major choice, decisions related to persistence in college, and ultimately on student graduation rates. We found that African American and Hispanic students were less likely to choose STEM majors at admission and have patterns of major change suggesting they are more likely to leave a STEM major than their traditionally represented counterparts. In addition, we identified a racial gap in the fall-to-fall retention of students from HEG-STEM that was exacerbated during the pandemic. These patterns were also found in our graduation data; in the 5 most recent cohorts of students, the 4-year completion rate of African American students was as much as 50% lower than that of White students (e.g., for students entering in 2015, the 4-year completion rate was 25% and 50%, respectively).

Funding continued to be a major theme within the context of DEI in STEM. Faculty and students often acknowledged that students from HEG-STEM may have disparate experiences and responsibilities stemming from historical and systemic socioeconomic inequality and identified funding as a way to increase engagement in research and reduce the need for work.

Faculty uniquely noted competing priorities as a challenge to DEI efforts. They noted that “DEI work” is excluded from current tenure and promotion packages, and that students, particularly students from HEG-STEM, have competing priorities including jobs and family responsibilities that limit their engagement.  

Most faculty acknowledged the importance of DEI in STEM. However, other faculty members expressed resistance to DEI, preferring to focus on the development of science skills rather than diversifying students and peers. Participants indicated that a major barrier to DEI in STEM at RUC was faculty attitudes and beliefs about race, which was also associated with perceived resistance to DEI efforts. These data are consistent with other portions of the self-study in which some participants identified disinterest in DEI.

Students also identified the presence of overt and covert racism within STEM, expressing feelings that White students receive more attention in the classroom, and that people of color and women were more likely to be the targets of lower expectations from peers and professors, and less likely to get positions of authority, run programs, or receive the attention they deserve. 

Students and faculty both felt that future funding was important to promote success for students in STEM.  Both also identified similarities in activities that actively promote STEM success, such as differentiated learning, engagement in labs and research, mentoring, and tutoring. However, students uniquely identified a need for formal and informal community, while faculty uniquely focused on removing barriers to student engagement and the development of student STEM identity. 

To improve DEI in STEM, faculty most often identified the need for more diverse faculty and better representation, funding, mentoring, and STEM identity development. When faculty described students who were most successful in STEM they identified the importance of differentiated teaching, engaging in mentor/mentee relationships, increasing communication, altering schedules to accommodate students, and actively promoting development of a STEM identity. 

Some students expressed a desire to have more of the teaching and learning be career oriented. Students also focused on the need for more individualized and smaller group tutoring identifying the most successful students as those who engage in frequent tutoring from peers and formal tutors, seek mentoring relationships with professors to foster their growth, and build both formal and informal academically and interpersonally supportive communities. Students also identified a need to develop a stronger and more inclusive STEM community among students and faculty.