The Research Catalogue
New Findings and Insights on Institutional Practices and Academic Success

This is a digest of sources on issues addressed by the AAAS Capacity Center. It is updated periodically, sometimes with commentary. Web links, some accessible only to subscribers, are provided wherever possible, though we cannot assure their viability.

July 7, 2006

The Revolving Door for Underpresented Minority Faculty in Higher Education: An Analysis from the Campus Diversity Initiative, Jose F. Moreno, Daryl G. Smith, et al, The James Irvine Foundation, April 2006. http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/education/insight_Revolving_Door.pdf

This report “examines the efforts of twenty-eight campuses involved in the Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI) to enhance faculty racial/ethnic diversity between 2000 and 2004.” Findings suggest that despite relative success in hiring underrepresented (URM) faculty, turnover was a critical factor contributing to a lack of substantial advancement of URM faculty. This report “provides a practical tool to help campus leaders measure faculty turnover and offers additional recommendations about data collection and use to access efforts in this area. Serious attention to recruitment and retention must be in place to increase the number and proportion of URM faculty.”

Spotlighting: Emergent Gender Bias in Undergraduate Engineering Education , Lisa A. McLoughlin, Journal of Engineering Education, October 2005: 373-381.

McLoughlin identifies three forms of “spotlighting”, the singling out of women by gender in ways that make them uncomfortable, in the context of women in engineering (WIE) programs. These programs are subject to a new type of gender bias that singles out women with the intention of helping them. McLoughlin offers two changes to WIE programs to reduce spotlighting while retaining their overall benefits.

Transforming High School Teaching and Learning: A District-Wide Design , Judy Wurtzel, The Aspen Institute, May 2006, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/education

This paper centers on how to substantially improve high school instruction. Wurtzel “suggests a set of design specifications for strengthening interaction of student, teacher and content and increasing student performance across a school district.” This design has six components – Components 1 and 2 offer a new “job description” and focuses on teacher recruitment and retention, while Components 3 to 6 describe “infrastructure for improving high school instruction consistent with this new job description.”

Leaving Engineering: Lessons from Rowan University ''s College of Engineering , Harriet Hartman and Moshe Hartman, Journal of Engineering Education, January 2006: 49-61.

A study of Rowan undergraduate engineering students was conducted to determine the impact of Rowan''s “female-friendly” programs on the traditional gender gap in persistence and satisfaction in engineering. Both male and female “stayers” in the program are compared to “leavers” on a variety of characteristics. Hartman and Hartman found no apparent gender gap among Rowan students. Some reasons for early attrition include lower math/science SAT scores and higher verbal SAT scores, declaration of a general major versus a specific discipline, and less involvement in academic enrichment and counseling activities.