Panel Summaries and Recommendations for Action

Sarah Rajala

• Her group talked about issues in academia as they related to graduate students and faculty;  summarized the issues and talked about the strategies that came up within the group.
• First-- suggested the need to get to the point where we have committed leadership within the universities, the Presidents, the Provosts and the Deans.
• Second--if this isn't the case, there's a need to educate and raise awareness among the senior faculty because they and the department heads are predominantly White males. 
• Talked about the concern that in changing policies and procedures that there needs to be someone who has the guts to stand up and call it if it isn't happening.
•   Another concern presented was the lack of attention to graduate recruitment. Time is spent with K-12 outreach, but not so much time on focusing and recruiting women and under-represented minorities into graduate schools.
• A final concern raised was whether there was an even playing field at the time a graduate student finishes their degree and applies for a faculty position.  Do they have the same kind of credentials?  There still exists a gender bias in the paper selection at journals and conferences so the "good old boy" network is in effect.
• Regarding strategies--they did not get to all the strategies for these but some of the ones they came up with were as follows: trying to figure out how to use Title 9, the importance of multi-prong approaches--working with high school students, K-12, undergraduate students and looking at pedagogical changes.  CMU's CS department went from a 7% female population to a 42% female population in 5 years with one of these multi-prong approaches--and so is a model that can be used.
• Reward those who do a good job, take advantage of their knowledge and expertise.
• Have serious conversations with respective peers.  Deans meeting with senior faculty, laying out expectations, asking expectations, asking them to figure out how they want to solve the problem, and then holding them accountable for it and building consensus.
• Enhance student recruitment--via summer undergraduate experiences, honors programs, and undergraduate education and outside speakers.
• Set up mentoring models between undergraduate and graduate students, allowing undergraduates to get exposed to graduate level research; mentoring relationships between new graduate students and more senior graduate students to enhance their success. 
• Building communities and networks --this has helped with retention among women and under-represented minorities.
• AT&T and Lucent were asked to do whatever they can do to pressure its corporate colleagues to pressure universities to do a better job at recruiting women and minorities. Hold schools accountable through funding efforts. NSF requires that all research proposals account for the way in which they are having a broader impact.
• Sloan asks institutions and universities to provide data on how well they have done to recruit and retain their under-represented faculty and students in their programs.
• Corporations can pressure each other and hold universities accountable.
  

• Expressed the observation that a number of sessions touched on some of the same topics; hers talked about mentoring and institutional change and the constellation of factors needed for powerful change.
• Suggested that passionate leadership is needed but it also must be present within the troops since the will to change must be in both places.
• Discussed mentoring as a learning process--with learning objectives for both the learner and the teacher.
• Indicated that recognition of informal mentoring is also important.
• A need for easier links for both prospective protégés and mentors to find enjoyable mentoring efforts was suggested.
  

• Identified three core themes with a number of related recommendations which appear to follow much of what had already been discussed.
• First theme centered around creating a culture of mentoring. Need to create an expectation of those mentored to mentor others.  This develops the individual and adds that expectation to the gifts you give.
• Second-- suggested that what BEST is learning about mentoring might be useful; ask BEST to convene leaders to discuss the models Bell Labs, Lucent and AT&T have created. Move the culture of industry to a greater recognition of support for mentoring programs and how to move to the top of the level of execution by offering the kinds of programs that historically AT&T has offered.
• Finally, help universities to develop and institutionalize workshops that allow young faculty to identify and act effectively when promising students are struggling.
• Next core theme looked at going to younger groups; working with K-12 was seen as important to succeed with the K-16 and K-20 pipeline.
• Identify support models that create stronger community and parental involvement. Some models suggested were Tech Savvy by AAUW, the Parenting Involvement Programs of Education Trust and the community involvement programs for the rural school and Community Trust.
• Create mentoring programs for teachers--particularly in the sciences, and support research on what works for whom and when.
• Third major theme was to get personal--set  goals to help a number of people in some specific way and track that you do it each year and each decade of your career.
• Get involved in local school district implementation of "No Child Left Behind".
•   Expressed thanks to Ms. Yung-Rim Hyun for taking notes and for the group members and their wonderful input.
  

• Group talked a little about the process and the outcomes;  thanked Ms. Prachee Sharma for taking such good notes and keeping the group on point.
• Group focused on coming out with one or two solid recommendations to give to the AT&T and Lucent Foundations about things that could be done.  Talked about things that grabbed them during the day and cast some votes.
• Started with 26 ideas, whittled that down to half and put them in categories to come out with 13 focus areas. Then gave each member four votes to identify focus areas.  Came down to 2 focus areas and two areas of recommendation.  
• AT&T and Lucent can do a lot with early outreach to make math, science, and engineering accessible to students, parents, and K-12 educators and has not used the reservoir of talent-- they have to do that.
• Role models from the AT&T and Lucent programs are the ones that should be seen by kids.  Need to market this, make it relevant and accessible.
• AT&T and Lucent need to leverage the influence they have with universities to produce the kind of graduates we need to see; hold back money from schools that are not implementing what they say they are going to do if they do not do it; stop recruiting at these schools and be public about it.
• Other industries need to follow what AT&T and Lucent have done.
•  Co-ops and internships help to identify potential undergraduates that have promise.    
• Make sure the institutions are investing in the students.  They need to spend their money to invest in students and highlight successful partnerships.
• AT&T and Lucent have a leadership position here and group recommended that it be used.

Marilyn Reznick, Vice President Education Programs AT&T Foundation

Rich Curico, Director of  Operations and Programs, Lucent Foundation

 

In summary

• Thanked the attendees for their excellent suggestions, comments and engagement.  Expressed hope that they found the day as productive as the companies have.
• The AT&T and Lucent Foundations will take back to each of their companies the good suggestions made by the participants such as those about holding universities accountable, better supporting our schools, and looking for ways to get the word out, to communicate what this is all about.