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When senior tax consultant Juan Betancourt first came to the United States from Colombia, he knew his only option for success was to graduate college: “I knew it would be hard for my father to afford college, so I came to live with an aunt in Texas” and work full time as a dishwasher to get an accounting degree from the University of Texas.

However, a roadblock during Betancourt’s sophomore year almost prevented him from graduating. “All my college buddies had gotten internships at great companies. I had nothing and panicked. I was the first person in my family to go to college and didn’t understand all the things you have to do,” he says.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ (HACU) National Internship Program (HNIP) helped him get the experience he needed with an internship at Deloitte, No. 8 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. The program places high-performing college students with paid internships at corporations such as DiversityInc Top 50 companies PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sodexo, Marriott International, Eli Lilly and Company, and Target. Students also are placed at federal agencies. HNIP held its 20th-anniversary celebration gala on Oct. 22 in Washington, D.C., and has placed more than 10,000 students to date. Thirty-three percent of interns receive offers of employment, and 57 percent of the offers are accepted, HACU reports.

“If it wasn’t for HACU’s connections, I’d have a different type of job and career,” says Paola Marte, HACU alumnae and senior tax consultant for Deloitte in New York City. Marte, born in the Dominican Republic, was among the first in her family to attend college. “The Big Four don’t recruit at small schools like mine [Barton College in North Carolina],” she says. “HACU was the bridge that allowed me to go to a large firm and line up a job before graduation.”

The transition from college to career is clear-cut for many middle-class students: You take classes, obtain an internship, graduate and then apply for jobs. But a majority of first-generation college-goers, many of whom are Latinos and immigrants, aren’t aware of the opportunities available to them, according to Dr. Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of HACU. And the majority of Latino parents don’t have the career knowledge needed to provide the necessary guidance.

“Lack of exposure to development of expertise, successful interviews, taking corporate exams for entry or for full-time opportunities—all these things need to be addressed,” says Dr. Flores.  “Latino students need to know it’s possible for them to go into these high-performing careers, that these types of positions are available.”

Dr. Flores adds, “We have to make them think of themselves as professional, then give them a game plan to get there.”

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My colleagues and I at GLSEN have been faced with a similar question ever since we opened our doors in 1990 to create educational environments where every member of every school community is valued and respected, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. How can we identify and support talented young leaders in order to advance our common goal?

Our mandate is to improve the school experience for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students despite the many inclement conditions that can impact their ability to learn and succeed. Since our founding, GLSEN has served as a resource for schools, equipping them to be a safe space for LGBT students by preparing educators to teach the fundamentals, including respect for all. Our goal is to make sure that our nation’s youth are set up for success from the very moment a student enters kindergarten until they graduate from high school and set off to pursue their own hopes and dreams. The end result is a new generation of future leaders—LGBT-identified or otherwise—ready to address the issues of their time.

Yet sadly, LGBT students have shouldered the burden of making sure they can learn and grow despite being at heightened risk of facing incidents of victimization and hostility. A majority of LGBT students in the country have reported experiences of hearing homophobic remarks or even being physically harassed in school simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. And through more than a decade of research, we know that when an LGBT student feels unsafe in school, they are more likely to skip class, perform poorer in school and say they are less likely to pursue post-secondary education. Instead of worrying about a down economy, GLSEN has been confronted with the disparity in educational opportunities for LGBT students and their allies.

Student leaders were among the brave trailblazers who founded GLSEN, and student leadership has always been at the core of the programs and advocacy designed to address this disparity. Ten years ago, GLSEN decided to invest in supporting student-leadership development in and of itself, and we established a series of student-leadership programs designed to support student-driven efforts that would ensure schools were safe and free from the harmful disruptions of anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. In doing so, we believed the very students experiencing these incidents of victimization would be empowered to not only create change in their schools but also transform their own lives into something more hopeful.

One of the first students that GLSEN partnered with was Nathan from Michigan. Nathan was assaulted in school during his freshman year because he was perceived to be gay. And Nathan wanted to make sure LGBT students and straight allies—like himself—would not have to go through what he did. Nathan decided to join GLSEN as a student organizer where he and dozens of other LGBT and allied students from across the country received skills-building training, resources and individualized support throughout the year to make an impact in their school and communities. In turn, Nathan coordinated GLSEN’s Day of Silence in his community, helping to organize nearly 400 student participants from six high schools and two colleges to raise awareness about anti-LGBT behavior in school. He even went on to found his high school’s gay-straight alliance to support LGBT and allied students, and he lobbied the board of education to include protections for LGBT students within district policies.

Fast forward to the present and I can’t begin to share all of Nathan’s achievements. This remarkable young man graduated from high school and studied public policy at the University of Michigan. Soon after, he decided to put his education and community involvement to work by successfully running for a seat on East Lansing’s city council. And it’s worth noting that Nathan remained actively engaged with GLSEN’s work by serving on our national board of directors.

Nathan’s story isn’t a fluke. In fact, it has become an increasingly common and gratifying experience for me to hear of more students involved with our safe-schools work to excel in the classroom and accomplish tremendous things at such an incredibly young age. And research has shown that GLSEN’s student programs help LGBT and ally youth learn vital leadership skills and increase their engagement in community organizing and activism.

Take, for example, Jeremy, who is a current GLSEN student leader and high-school sophomore in Fargo, N.D. Jeremy recently traveled to Washington, D.C., where he secured Sen. Kent Conrad’s support for the federal Safe Schools Improvement Act. Or I can point to GLSEN student leader Tiffani from Arlington, Va., who recently met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to share how the U.S. Department of Education could better serve LGBT students experiencing bullying and harassment in school. These are just a couple of the growing examples of student leadership that GLSEN and our 36 local chapters across the country continue to cultivate and nurture.

GLSEN understands the many benefits of cultivating young leadership while encouraging their academic potential to succeed. And our perspective on how student leadership can improve school climate mirrors a similar understanding on talent management found within the corporate workplace. In order to maximize business performance, corporations must invest in leadership- and talent-development opportunities for their workforce. For GLSEN, we empower LGBT youth and their allies with tools and support to create a safer school climate where every student is able to succeed. And we know these leadership skills and experiences follow a student well beyond school and into the workplace when they successfully apply for their first job and their career begins to unfold.

The student-leadership model that GLSEN continues to build upon demonstrates how we can successfully address systemic challenges like anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in school. But it has also shown its astonishing value in transforming the lives of young people everywhere.

I remain in touch with Nathan, but I now receive a growing amount of emails from former students filled with news about their latest achievements at college or work. When I read these heartwarming notes, I am reminded that they and other young adults will be the next dynamic leaders in business, politics, education, media and social entrepreneurship. And I can say with confidence that our world will be in capable hands when the next generation is ready to lead.

By Dr. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN. DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel is a member of the GLSEN National Board of Directors.

The post Where’s the Pipeline of LGBT Talent? Why We Need to Support Gay Youth appeared first on DiversityInc.

Now 23 years old, Soetan is a product manager with a large retail pharmacy chain in the Chicago area. She credits her current position to a multi-year business-management internship she received through INROADS.

“I stumbled upon it while looking for college scholarships on Fastweb online,” she recalls. Soetan notes that it’s pretty rare for a 16-year-old girl to find a paid internship, let alone one that provides such in-depth talent development.

Soetan started the internship during her first summer after high school and continued the program throughout her four years of college. After graduation, she was offered a full-time position with the company as an assistant manager.

“INROADS taught me how to network with the people I worked with, to dress for work and be professional so I could succeed in the real world,” says Soetan. “The program fostered me a lot in career development and getting necessary tools for the program.” These include both hard and soft business skills through training, networking opportunities, mock interviews, tutoring and mentoring.

A Mission in Talent Development

INROADS, founded by Frank C. Carr in Chicago in 1970, is a nonprofit organization that aims to develop talented underserved youth for success in business, providing them the necessary skills and opportunities to gain valuable internships, and eventually positions, with companies.

There is also an INROADS alumni network that provides current and former interns with an online and national community, offering a continued support system throughout their careers.

“It’s a strong leadership and development program focused on growing the competencies of these young people with a rigorous coaching process,” explains Maria Morris, executive vice president of global employee benefits for MetLife and chairman of the board for INROADS. MetLife is No. 50 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 and has been a top 10 INROADS-sponsoring company since 2004. 

Currently under the executive leadership of president and CEO Forest T. Harper, who had humble beginnings himself as the son of migrant farmers in Florida, INROADS offers high-potential Black, Latino and American Indian students the tools they need to aspire and achieve leadership roles that otherwise would be unobtainable. Read Talent Development: From Migrant Workers’ Son to CEO for his story.

Talent Development Creates Opportunity

Cerileene Menendez Mendoza, who moved from her home in Puerto Rico to attend Assumption College, a small school in Massachusetts, says she never would have gotten her accounting internship at KPMG (No. 22) without INROADS. She says internships were typically reserved for students at much larger colleges.

“Specifically, INROADS prepared me for the interview and to develop cultural awareness and understanding for a corporate culture. They helped me become sure about myself and I was able to meet other students going through the same process,” she says. “INROADS’ network and peer-to-peer reviews provided really good feedback.”

Thanks to INROADS, Mendoza’s career took off after she graduated in 2011: After graduation, she was chosen as a Fulbright Scholar. Fulbright is a grant-based work-abroad exchange program from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars on behalf of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Mendoza is now is the director of platonic venture capitalists for Toniic Mexico at New Ventures Mexico.

She also was featured in an edition of CNN’s Expansion, a business magazine targeting professionals in Mexico and Latin America, for her accomplishments when she was 22 years old, she says.

“INROADS helped me … to think about my skills,” says Mendoza. “I was able to gain exposure culturally to other parts of the world and in the United States. They showed me new experiences and career options I never considered.”

See also: Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach

Investing in Talent Development

The mission of INROADS is as relevant today as it ever was, according to INROADS alumnus Jeffrey S. Perry, whose initial internship with INROADS has come full circle.

Perry, who started as an intern for two years at an oil company and moved on to work at companies including Booz Allen Hamilton (No. 36) and another management consultancy, now serves as a board member for INROADS. In his current position as transaction integration practice leader for Ernst & Young (No. 6), Perry keeps the benefits of INROADS close at hand. There is a war for talent, and “INROADS helps us at Ernst & Young stay competitive,” he says.

The company places heavy emphasis on diverse recruiting and has multiple partnerships with colleges and organizations. It also hosts its own Discover Ernst & Young events to generate interest in the accounting profession among students. Learn more about the company’s recruiting strategies in Diversity Web Seminar on Recruitment: 5 Workforce-Diversity Strategies to Find, Engage & Retain Talent.

“It about developing very specific, targeted programs for the interns and leveraging INROADS access to alumni. It’s so we can progress talent to that next level,” says Perry.

For more information on INROADS and for a list of sponsoring companies, visit www.inroads.org.

The post Talent Development Creates Ability for INROADS Students to Succeed appeared first on DiversityInc.

An Ambitious Proposal

When the vice president for enrollment management at Rutgers University first presented his proposal for the Rutgers Future Scholars program to Rutgers Chairman Rev. Dr. M. William Howard Jr. and President Richard McCormick, he didn’t think it would ever get approved. “It was so expensive and ambitious,” recalls McAnuff. (Costs approached $2 million in 2011.) “But it only took them 15 minutes to review it and give the go-ahead.”

The Rutgers Future Scholars program, now in its fourth year, was designed to resolve an existing lack of urban-based students from lower-income families from Rutgers’ surrounding locales. Each year, 200 seventh-grade students are selected into the five-year college-prep program from the New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden communities.

The students are supported with tutoring and mentoring and are given opportunities to attend educational events on campus to increase their exposure to the opportunities a college education can deliver. Graduating scholars who are accepted to Rutgers University are granted a full scholarship.

The program receives funding from multiple partners, which include DiversityInc and Merck & Co. (No. 16 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), AT&T (No. 4), Target (No. 30) and Ernst & Young (No. 6). Additionally, DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti is co-chair of the Rutgers Future Scholars fundraising committee.

Watch our diversity web seminar on recruitment and read Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach for more on Ernst & Young’s partnership with Rutgers Future Scholars. Also read How to Get 150 Top-Performing Black and Latino Candidates Now for more more on recruitment.

Talent Development: A Blueprint for the Future

The ultimate goal, says McAnuff, is to increase graduation rates, which in turn will foster improvements within state and local governments. He cites that about half the Black and Latino boys in urban areas who drop out of high school often end up in the correctional system; an economic study on Rutgers Future Scholars estimates that every group of scholars that completes the program will save the state $40 million over the course of the students’ lifetime. Read the study at www.DiversityInc.com/RFSvalue.

“I do hope that one day we can make the argument to state and federal governments that we can demonstrate with results,” McAnuff says. “Because of our experience, we can actually write a national blueprint that is relatively inexpensive, where we can spend $2,000 a year per kid rather than $45,000 for someone in prison.”

Even though the oldest group of students is still in the junior year of high school, the program has already had amazing results: Of the more than 800 students in the program, 80 percent have maintained a B or better grade average, and 180 students report that they plan to apply to Rutgers in September.

“One argument in higher education is if you are open to more low-income or more diverse students, you are lowering academic standards,” says McAnuff. “At Rutgers, we’ve proven that incorrect.” He adds, “I’m happy to say after four years that none of the kids in the program has dropped out of high school.”

Nurturing Intellect Through Talent Development

While an interest in higher education and helping students realize success is something McAnuff fell in love with during his early career as a teacher, his passion for providing those opportunities for low-income students stems from his childhood growing up in Queens, N.Y.

“There was no middle ground: You went to college or you went to jail,” says McAnuff. “My next-door neighbor was my best friend until the third year of high school. He became a drug addict.”

He adds, “If you have intellect, you have a chance here. I want to make sure as many kids as possible have the opportunity to try.”

Competing against tough neighborhood environments proves to be one of the programs’ and scholars’ greatest challenges, says McAnuff. “I was really surprised how the deans jumped on board so wholeheartedly,” he says. “Many students are now graduating high school, many with college credit, which was unheard of before. The kids believe they can do it now.”

For more on talent development and diversity in education, read Talent Development: From Migrant Workers’ Son to CEO and Sam’s Club Gives Latino Students $100,000 in Scholarships.

The post Talent Development: Identify & Develop Your Future Pipeline appeared first on DiversityInc.

Read personal stories from two INROADS interns: Talent Development Creates Ability for INROADS Students to Succeed.

The president and CEO of INROADS, who spent 28 years at Pfizer (including his last role as vice president of capability development and stakeholder relations), started life as the son of migrant workers in Fort Pierce, Fla.

“My parents worked in the fields, harvesting vegetables and fruits … we lived in the projects, and from the top of the roof, I had two views, the drive-in theater and Cape Canaveral,” recalls Harper, who now heads the nonprofit that helps low-income students find and succeed in corporate internships. Most of those students are Black, Latino and American Indian.

For more on talent development and diversity in education, read Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach and PhD Project: Getting Diversity to the Next Academic Level.

The Power of Support

His family, friends and teachers recognized that the bright child and gifted athlete had a chance for a better life. He excelled at football and basketball, and as starting quarterback, he led his high-school football team to a state championship. Harper won a full scholarship to Morgan State University in Baltimore, but a serious knee injury put it at risk. The school let him in on a conditional scholarship: If the knee got better and he could play, he could stay.

He boarded a Greyhound bus for Baltimore, not knowing if he had a real future or if he would return to the fields. His knee got better and he made the team—and then he was injured again.

“Before I was hurt, I was at football practice and a tall gentleman in uniform came over to me,” Harper recalls. “He said: ‘Maybe I can talk to you about how you can leave Morgan State with two degrees, no matter what happens with football.’”

The gentleman was with the Army ROTC, and his suggestion and mentorship changed the young man’s trajectory. Harper went on to major in social work and then went in to the Army, where he achieved the rank of captain in the 82nd Airborne Division.

Harper loved the structure and opportunities of the military, but his family was having tough financial times, so he decided to seek employment in private industry. His first and only corporate employer was Pfizer, where he was hired as a salesman.

For more on veterans and talent development, watch Diversity Web Seminar: Veterans in the Workplace Webinar.

Recognizing Potential

“My district sales manager, Richard Matthews, asked me what my aspirations were. I said, ‘I would like to grow up and have your job.’ He said, ‘Then that’s what you’ll do,’” Harper recalls. “I owe him a tremendous amount for just being able to tell me I could reach for this. Leadership is not about you but what you do for your people.”

Harper spent almost three decades at Pfizer, becoming a senior executive with major leadership positions in sales, public affairs and public policy. He helped start the company’s African-American resource group and served as its president—and he was deeply involved in the company’s efforts to reduce healthcare disparities. He also was a member of Pfizer’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Committee. Along the way, he broke a few barriers.

“I was the first and only in eight different positions at Pfizer. I could do nothing about being the first, but I could always do something about being the only,” he says.

Harper spent two years as an executive on loan to the National Urban League and the Executive Leadership Council, which works to get Blacks into senior positions in corporate America.

Pay It Forward

In his mid-50s, Harper decided he wanted to share the business and leadership skills he had learned in corporate America with nonprofits, and his strongest goal was to mentor and educate students.

Thus the fit to lead INROADS was perfect. INROADS has found spots for more than 2,000 student interns with more than 200 major corporations. With nearly 24,000 alumni, Harper sees great opportunity for expanding the organization’s potential to help young people gain the first foothold to corporate success.

“My one-year plan is to work with the national board of directors and key stakeholders and ensure we have the financial stability to help our 2,000 students. I want to enhance the awareness and benefits of INROADS so we are no longer the best-kept secret in corporate America,” he says.

Beyond that? “Our goal is that companies tell us over and over that they value the partnership because it is a part of their overall talent blueprint,” he says, adding, “Talent is a continuing life cycle, not just a one-time thing.”

Follow INROADS on Twitter (@INROADS), Facebook and LinkedIn, or watch video interviews with INROADS alumni on YouTube. Read this profile in DiversityInc’s June 2012 digital issue.

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The New York–based Big Four company, No. 5 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity, recently held its Discover Ernst & Young event and the fourth annual Campus Diversity and Inclusiveness Roundtable in New York. 

From Talented Students … 

Discover Ernst & Young, which stems from the company’s former Discover Tax program that targets increasing interest in the tax sector, is a three-day seminar of workshops and activities, like a scavenger hunt. Its purpose is to engage the 150 freshmen, sophomores and juniors from 73 national colleges and universities who are primarily Black, Latino and American Indian. The goal is to inspire future accounting professionals for Ernst & Young’s talent pipeline. 

“I’m big on planting trees. From our talent-development pipeline, we have to invest early before students think about other careers,” said Ken Bouyer, Americas director of inclusiveness recruiting. Those initiatives also include students on the high-school level, as detailed in Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach.

At the kick-off experience, for which E&Y covered all the students’ expenses, Chairman and CEO Jim Turley directly engaged with students during a Q&A session along with other E&Y recruitment leaders, including Americas Campus Recruiting Director Dan Black and Americas Vice Chair of People Nancy Altobello, to spur excitement for the accounting profession. 

“The world is a very turbulent place. There is a lot of angst. In turbulent times there are going to be winners and losers, whether a country or a company,” said Turley. He discussed what it takes to be a winner—the mindset of an entrepreneur with an aggressive eye for opportunity. 

… To Schools That Educate 

The firm simultaneously hosted its fourth annual Campus Diversity and Inclusiveness Faculty Roundtable. University teachers and administrators from 15 schools discussed the business imperative for diversity and the need to create a culture of inclusiveness. For more about existing diversity gaps among college students, read American Universities Hinder Diversity Among STEM Students.

The roundtable sought to address three main objectives: why diversity is important to Ernst & Young, why it’s important to schools, and formulating an action plan that will move the needle.

Panelists included: Tony Anderson, vice chair and Midwest area managing partner, Ernst & Young; Denice Kronau, chief diversity officer, Siemens; and Bruce Jackson, senior counsel, Microsoft. Read How to Increase the Number of Black CPAs for recruiting and retention best practices. 

“We need you. We can’t do this without the pipeline of students,” said Bouyer during the introduction. He noted that 49 percent of Ernst & Young’s intern hires came from colleges represented in the audience. 

Blacks, Latinos and Asians make up about 32 percent of Ernst & Young’s North American workforce, and women make up 48 percent of its North American workforces. In 2011, Blacks, Latinos and Asians totaled 39 percent and women totaled 47 percent of all new North American hires. 

Global Implications 

Turley also addressed the administrators, discussing trends in global business and the economy and the business imperative for diversity and inclusiveness today. 

“The world is going through the most geopolitical economic shifts in history. Emerging markets are on fire … The slowest-growing economies in the world are the oldest, Europe and Japan,” he said. “The workers of tomorrow will be much more diverse, not just in the United States but everywhere in the world.” 

He encouraged the administrators to think about how they are going to educate students to have a broader global mindset so they can contribute to increasingly global teams of workers. It’s “building this pipeline for long-term success” that is the hardest thing, he said. 

For information on how to help fund scholarships for financially disadvantaged students, read about the DiversityInc Foundation.

The post How to Get 150 Top-Performing Black and Latino Candidates Now appeared first on DiversityInc.

The data is represented in the Bayer Corporation’s Bayer Facts of Science Education XV survey, which polled 413 STEM department chairs at the top 200 U.S.-based research universities, as well as colleges known for successfully graduating Black, Latino and American Indian STEM students. 

Discouraging Courses 

Nearly half (46 percent) of STEM department chairs believe that traditional academic approaches—namely the “weeding out” of students via demanding introductory courses—are harmful to women, Black, Latino and American Indian students. More than half (59 percent) reported that this discouragement occurs “frequently” or “occasionally.” Eighty-three percent said that faculty members do counsel some students away from STEM degrees, and 58 percent noted it as a common practice.­ 

Education, Role Models & Stereotypes 

STEM department chairs rate the most significant barriers for students from traditionally underrepresented groups as a lack of educational preparation (32 percent) and a lack of role models (17 percent). Women students are challenged by a lack of role models (13 percent) and stereotypes (13 percent). For more on how stereotypes threaten students from succeeding at higher-education institutions, read social psychologist Dr. Claude Steele’s comments at a DiversityInc event. 

Educational preparation is less of an issue for women STEM students (12 percent). The majority of department chairs (82 percent) perceive that women students enter college with a quality education, compared with majority students (74 percent) and Black, Latino and American Indian students (34 percent). Chairs also believe that women are 93 percent “as likely” or “more likely” to graduate compared with majority students. Only 61 percent anticipate the same for Black, Latino and American Indian students.

Initiating Change 

According to Greg Babe, president and CEO of Bayer Corporation, the most important finding of the study was respondents’ lack of willingness to alter current teaching practices. While 84 percent of STEM department chairs recognized that recruiting and retaining women, Black, Latino and American Indian students is a prominent challenge and 46 percent perceive “weeding out” as harmful to students, more than half (57 percent) felt no need to change. And of those citing a need for change, the majority (71 percent) calls for an increase in academic support and tutoring. 

“No institution should be immune to making changes where change is needed,” says Babe, who notes that “college STEM departments are important gatekeepers to STEM careers—indeed one of the most important links in the chain.” 

Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the first Black woman astronaut, medical doctor, chemical engineer and Bayer’s Making Science Make Sense spokesperson, says that it’s important to note that STEM dropout rates for all undergraduate students are at 40 to 60 percent. For more on how organizations can help improve dropout rates and bolster future talent pipelines, read “Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach.”

“This survey is about the perception about how the department chairs rate themselves, and there’s a reality behind that as well,” Jemison says. “The vast majority consider that women come to college very ready to succeed at STEM and graduate at much larger percentages. But when [students from traditionally underrepresented groups] and [majority students] do come prepared, they still graduate in lower numbers.” 

Jemison cites industry research that found that 40 percent of women, Blacks, Latinos and American Indians who graduated with STEM degrees report that they were actively discouraged. “We are still losing other folks,” she says, noting how “weeding out” results in a loss of interest and self-confidence among STEM undergraduates.  

To improve diversity in STEM departments, Jemison says that institutions need to provide expectation, exposure and experience. “Let students know that they should be there and that they are wanted,” she advises. 

Read about the DiversityInc Foundation’s mission to fund scholarships for students who are disadvantaged financially.

Referenced Articles: 

How to Get More Blacks and Latinos in Accounting

The STEM Pipeline for Women

Rutgers Students Excel in Sciences With ODASIS

The Stereotype Threat: Dr. Claude Steele Mesmerizes Audience

AT&T & Rutgers on Solving the Dropout Crisis

 Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach

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