How universities are failing to decolonize science? A new analysis of UKRI funding of PhD degrees for African-Americans and black-Mexicans

Universities are failing big time in addressing the need to decolonize science. So are funders. A 2019 report found that out of 20,000 PhD fellowships funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) over the previous 3 years, only 1.2% went to Black students — and only 30 went to students of Black Caribbean descent. Institutions offer enough lip service to equality, but they do the bare minimum, in part to shield themselves from criticism, often from right-wing commentators. It takes more than just giving out degrees to famous Black people and putting pictures of Black scientists on the wall.

Social networks, access to information on grants and how to win them are some of the factors used to move up the seniority ladder. According to multiple studies, senior figures are more likely to see potential in people like themselves if they are similar to themselves.

Richards compares it to navigating from one side of a dark, cluttered room to the other — some are given a torch and others are not. You don’t have to blame people for shining a torch to help someone. If you aren’t being helped out as much as others, it will make a difference in your progression.

Studies show that women and marginalized academics get lower marks in how students rate their lecturers. The research time is taken away by time spent on breaking down race- and ethnicity-based barriers. There are several reasons, one of which is the grants process.

Less than 4% of professors in the sciences are of Asian ethnicity, with 6.1% in chemistry and 5.3% in physics. Engineering subjects tend to be more diverse: 18% of civil-engineering professors, for example, are of Asian ethnicities and 2.6% are Black.

State Superintendents and Boards of Regents in Florida, Revisited after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that schools should be accountable to students, faculty and administrators for teaching critical race theory

The proposal is a top priority for DeSantis’ higher education agenda this year, which also includes giving politically appointed presidents and university boards of trustees more power over hiring and firing at universities and urging schools to focus their missions on Florida’s future workforce needs. DeSantis, who is said to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid, has seen his standing among conservatives soar nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural and education issues.

The purpose of diversity, equity and inclusion programs is to promote multiculturalism and encourage students from traditionally underrepresented communities to feel comfortable on a campus. The flagship school of the state of Florida has a Chief Diversity Officer, an office for accessibility and gender Equity, and a Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement.

Tuesday’s announcement was foreshadowed in December when the governor’s office asked all state universities to account for all of their spending on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.

The Republican governor has also installed a controversial new board at the New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college, with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education.

Eddie Speir, a new board member, wrote in an online post that he was going to propose at the board meeting toterminate all contracts for faculty, staff and administration and immediately rehir those who would fit in the new financial situation.

DeSantis’ announcement follows a commitment earlier this month from the presidents of the state’s two-year community colleges to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to “not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

A new bill overhauling Florida universities to match Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vision for higher education would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study.

The legislation would require that general education courses at state colleges and universities promote the values needed to preserve the constitutional republic and that American history can’t be defined differently from the Declaration of Independence. It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”

The board of trustees would be chosen by the governor and his appointees and the school’s president to make hiring decisions. A board of trustee member could also call for the review of any faculty member’s tenure.

Jesse Lee’s lab environment and his mentorship approach in advancing research and medicine: A case study of Alabama State University, an HBCU in Montgomery

The lab environment that Jesse Lee has been a part of is one of the more healthy lab environments that he has been a part of. Lab technicians are each trained in specialized techniques, such as mouse surgery or histology, and several technicians will collaborate on a project, training students as they go. This, coupled with Beatty’s hands-on approach to mentoring, means that “you’re constantly working together and coordinating how your things run through each team”, Lee says. “Everybody knows a little bit about everybody’s projects, and everybody’s always thinking about someone else’s project.”

Carl Pettis, the provost for academic affairs at Alabama State University (ASU), an HBCU in Montgomery, says that the university begins reaching out to potential students at a young age — from kindergarten, or age 5, through secondary school. Community colleges that offer two-year associate’s degrees are one of the places in which Sun Devil is looking for students. At ASU, students receive mentoring not just from faculty members, but from peers as well. Pettis said thatASU was always on the lookout for new partnerships after learning about the report’s recommendation of teaming up with HBCUs. The days of larger institutions reaching out to show some diversity are over, he says. You are signing on with the HBCU because they provide good students and they are quality partners.

The committee began meeting before a wave of legislation by some US states seeking to clamp down on diversity initiatives and the inclusion in university curricula of the topic of racism. The attrition rate of the DEI roles was increased by 50% after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020, reports show. Abby Ray, vice-president of marketing and communications at oSTEM, a national non-profit organization based in Grandville, Michigan, that advocates for people from sexual and gender minorities in science, says that such efforts underscore the need to keep pushing for change. They say it’s essential to give people who have historically been excluded from fields related to math and science a second chance.