UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

Needed More Today Than Ever!

June 2006

John MatejaDirector, URSA/McNair ProgramsMurray State University

Delivered at the CUR 2006 National Meeting by:

Undergraduate Research

About Individual Students• Doug• Aaron• John• Jon• Joe• and …...

WHO WORRIED ABOUT ……. U.S. ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS?

Yesterday

United States Leader In: Manufacturing (Steel, Automotive, Airplane)

Today “World is Flat” – Thomas Friedman

The Playing Field is Leveling

The World Has Changed!

Competition is Intense

1.3 Billion – China

1.1 Billion – India

0.3 Billion – United States

*

* Fastest growing economy the world has EVER seen!

Competition is IntenseScience and Engineering Indicators 2006

- National Science Board

• Considerable Worldwide Growth in R&D Investments

• International Scientific Publications have Increased

• Number of Science and Engineering Degrees in Europe and Asia have Increased

• India, Japan, China, and South Korea• DOUBLED NUMBER OF BACHELOR’S DEGREES IN THE NATURAL

SCIENCES (since 1975) • QUADRUPLED NUMBER OF ENGINERING BACHELORS DEGREES

Engineering Degrees Awarded

United States: 75,000

India: 350,000

China: 600,000

Foreign-Born Talent Pool

Important Source of Talent for Higher Education and Hi-Tech Companies

• 9/11 Yanked out the Welcome Mat

• International Competition Increasing• China – Initiative to Develop 100 New World Class Universities• European Commission – Doubled the Funding for Personnel in the Sixth Research Framework Programme (FP6)

Projected New Job Growth – U.S.

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35 PhysicalScientistsEngineers

Social Scientists

Life Sciences

Physicians

Healthcare

Computer/MathSciencesPostsecondaryEducation

Perc

ent

BLS, Occupational employment projections to 2014, November 2005

Total Jobs (due to growth and net replacement): 6,200,000

2004 - 2014

Strategy

We Will Prosper by Building a

KNOWLEDGE-BASED Workforce

Current Situation

Educational Attainment (2004)U.S. Census Bureau

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Bachelors Degree or Higher (by State)

Percent ofPopulation

All Degrees (Census Data)

Educational Attainment (2004)U.S. Census Bureau

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Bachelors Degree or Higher (by State)

Percent ofPopulation

All Degrees (Census Data)

STEM Degrees (estimated)

Education in the United States

Precollege Graduate Undergraduate

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Program for International Student Assessment (2003)

Math Literacy Scores of 15-Year-Olds

29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Countries

U.S. - 24th OUT OF 29 COUNTRIES

Program for International Student Assessment (2003)

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Science Literacy Scores of 15-Year-Olds

29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Countries

U. S. – 19th OUT OF 29 COUNTRIES

Precollege Education

Passive LearningFungi, Slime Molds, Lichens, and Mosses

Graduate EducationU.S. Graduate Education in Science and Engineering Considered to be the Best in the World

Graduate Enrollments in S & E:• U.S. – 10% Decline from 1994 to 2001• Foreign Students – 25% Increase

• 40% of Total Full-time Graduate Students

Graduate Degrees (in Sciences):• United States – 13%• Austria, Portugal – 40%• Japan, Korea, Sweden, Switzerland – 40% +

Undergraduate Education

United States - 17%

Bachelors Degrees Awarded in Sciences *

Finland, France, Korea, Germany – Over 30%

China – 52% (Science and Engineering)

* Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – 2000

To Recap:

1) Today’s Knowledge-based U.S. Workforce Is Not Sufficient to Meet Future Challenges

2) Foreign-born Talent Will Become Increasingly Difficult to Attract

3) U.S. is Not Educating the STEM Talent - At Any Level – U.S. Will Need to meet Tomorrow’s Challenges

What Matters in College?

Astin finds:

The nature of students’ PEER GROUP

Quality and quantity of student INTERACTION WITH FACULTY OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Level of STUDENT INVOLVEMENT

Amount of TIME ON TASK

A. W. Astin, “What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited,”San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993

What Works in College?

LEARN BY DOING!

What Should We DO?

• Redouble Efforts to Provide Undergraduates with Mentored Experiences in ALL DISCIPLINARY AREAS

• Work to Get Students into Graduate School

• Work to Change Teacher Education Programs

Fix What We Are Responsible For!

NOT Good Enough!

NEED Revolutionary Change - NOT Evolutionary Change

Change Undergraduate Education to be RESEARCH Focused, Not LECTURE Focused

• First College Class – RESEARCH METHODS• All Subsequent Classes - RESEARCH FOCUSED

• When classes meet, the students should discuss THEIR findings, with guided input from the faculty

MINIMIZE SEAT TIME

MAXIMIZE DOING

INVOLVE TEAMWORK

SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS

BE INTERDISCIPLINARY

BE FOR ALL STUDENTS

The New Education Formula

Must:

Education Funding

Funding Rates for Important NSF Programs: 2003 2004 2005

CCLI 19% 14% 13%RUI 33% 30% 28%REU (sites) 53% 32% 27%C-RUI Suspended

What has Happened to Education and Human Resource (EHR) funding at the NSF since 2004?

DECREASED BY 20%

Next Assignment

White House: www.whitehouse.govSenate: www.senate.govHouse: www.house.govNSF: Dr. Arden Bement

The National Science Foundation4201 Wilson BoulevardArlington, Virginia 22230, USA

Write the White House, Your Congressmen, and the Director of the National Science Foundation

1 World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, ISBN: 0-374-29279-5.2 Science and Engineering Indicators 2006, National Science Board (NSB 06-01)3 Employment by occupation, 2004 and Projected to 2014, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly Labor Review (Nov. 2005). http://www.bls.gov/emp/mlrappendix.pdf 4 A Commitment to America’s Future: Responding to the Crisis in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education, Christopher Roe. The Renaissance Group Fall Conference, Washington DC, (October 6, 2005)5 Sixth European Union Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development (FP6), European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/research. 6 Educational Attainment of the Population 25 Years and Over, by State, Including Confidence Intervals of Estimates: 2004, U.S. Census Bureau. http:// www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps2004/tab13.pdf

References

7 U.S. Student and Adult Performance on International Assessments of Education Achievement: Findings from The Condition of Education 2006, Lemke, M. and Gonzales, P. (2006). U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2006-073). Also PISA: http://www.pisa.oecd.org and http://nces.ed.gov/survey/pisa.8 Information on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development can be found at http://oecd.org. Member countries include, in addition to those listed in Figure 3, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Mexico and the United Kingdom.9 U.S. Student and Adult Performance on International Assessments of Education Achievement: Findings from The Condition of Education 2006, Lemke, M. and Gonzales, P. (2006). U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2006-073). Also TIMSS: http://nces.ed.gov/timss or http://www.timss.org10 Graduate Education Report, Committee on Graduate Education, Association of American University (October 1998). http://www.aau.edu/reports/CradEdTpr.html

References

11 Graduate Science and Engineering enrollment, by status and sex, and postdocs in science and engineering fields: 1993-2003. National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resource Statistics, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf0531712 Education at a Glance 2005 (Indicator A3: Current Tertiary graduation rates), Education and Training Publications and Documents, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2005). http://www.oecd.org/document.13 Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk (2005). Edited by Richard Hersh and John Merrow. 14 “What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited,” A. W. Astin.San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993 15 The relationship of undergraduate research participation to graduate and professional education pursuit: an empirical study. Hathaway, R.S., Nagda, B.A., and Gregerman, S.R. (2002). Journal of College Student Development, 43, 614-631.

References

16 Measuring the impact of the undergraduate research experience on student intellectual development. Rauckhorst, W.H., Czaja, J.A., and Baxter Magolda, M. (2001, July). Paper presented at Project Kaleidoscope Summer Institute, Snowbird, UT.17 The essential features of undergraduate research. Lopatto, D. (2003). Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, 24, 139-142.18 Boehlert, S., Business Higher Education Forum (June 8, 2006). http://www.house.gov/science/press/109/109-275.htm 19 Arden Bement, Testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Science and Space Hearing on the National Science Foundation and Science Priorities, May 2, 2006.20 Private Communication21 Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for American’s Research Universities, Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University – 1998; Boyer Revisited – 2002 http://naples.cc.suny.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/22 Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century: An Agenda for American Science and Technology, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine. The National Academies Press. ISBN 0-309-10045-3

References