First Blog

We talk about diversity in STEM education when what we want are the best people possible to pursue STEM.  In fact, diversity enhancement for specialized tasks can never work. Money notwithstanding, It is not possible to stimulate excellence to those uninclined to be inclined toward an unpreferred/undesired/uninteresting pathway. Pouring on the cash simply fails. In STEM especially, we need, desperately need, excellence. Politically correct STEM is without merit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Much of the country lives in some kind of panic mode, and if they have nothing going on they panic about that. The latest entry to the NY stock exchange is Luckin Coffee, a Chinese firm    Golly gee, Luckin is but a single letter from a horrific nickname. An interesting fact about traffic jams worldwide... If you've experienced one in Country A, it is much the same in Country B

This past week I visited Washington DC as part of an NSF grant.  It was all about creating more science, technology, engineering, and math majors.  Acronym: STEM.  This NSF STEP toward the STEM advocacy program is successful, and the grantees and grant administrators are highly motivated.  The meeting was excellent.  New ideas were presented; old ideas were reaffirmed; alternative ideas were presented.  It is acknowledged that more STEM majors are wanted and are needed.  For the USA, this is correct.  Make no doubt. The foundational question was how to get them? As usual, the keynote speaker cited the well known facts that USA students do poorly, actually very poorly, on international exams in these subjects, particularly math.  So, these sad facts loomed in the background. In short, the basics question was:  How do we get more people to pursue STEM degrees? Remarkably, there is no clear consensus on how this may be achieved.  The NSF project directors wanted us to report out