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This paper will focus on STEM education at the undergraduate level, pipeline issues related to retention in such programs and subsequent post-baccalaureate retention issues in graduate school and employment, and finally take a look at the challenges of balancing the technical content of a STEM degree with general education requirements and the espousal of civic duties. The central piece of legislation around which the examination of STEM trends will take place is the 2002 Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Improvement ACT, also referred to as the Undergraduate STEM Improvement Act, or for the purposes of brevity USTEMIA. The goal of this paper is to review this specific piece of legislation and draw a relationship between it and other literature on STEM education in order to isolate and analyze language in the policy that promotes the economization of education while potentially overlooking the need to also preserve and promote the civic components of STEM education. This analysis will not purport that any intentional inattention to civic values has been perpetrated, rather it will explore the potential tensions which could arise should the preservation of democratic and civic components of STEM focused education be lost in the translation of the proposed initiatives. |
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