In a new policy piece, biology faculty advocate for new classroom approaches to fix the national exodus of students from STEM fields.
All across the United States, half of the college students who plan to major in STEM switch fields. And Black and Latinx students leave STEM at a higher rate than their white peers. As STEM fields struggle to achieve diversity, faculty members are asking: how do we fix the exodus of students from STEM?
A policy piece published in Science and co-authored by Sarah Elgin, the Viktor Hamburger Professor Emerita in Arts & Sciences, and Christopher Shaffer, senior biology lecturer, both at Washington University in St. Louis, working with colleagues from different schools, argues that outdated teaching methods create an unwelcoming atmosphere, contributing to discrimination.