Tag: STEM

US Navy’s STEM ‘Equity’ Program Prioritized Candidates, Internships Based on Race, Docs Show

Wisconsin Daily Star Staff
Navy Test taking

The U.S. Navy approved more than $750,000 for a project that, while purporting to “equitably” increase the number of students interested in serving in the Navy’s STEM fields, prioritized recruiting underrepresented minority students, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.

The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) proposed a way to encourage students to pursue degrees in fields of science, technology, economics and math (STEM) amid pressures for the U.S. military to out-compete adversaries in technological development, according to the since-approved application obtained by the Functional Government Initiative through a records request and provided to the DCNF. Although the project was framed as providing an opportunity for all students to break into the STEM fields based on the students’ qualifications, the Navy granted a budget extension to include 75 scholarships for underrepresented minority students and gave them first selection for the few on-campus paid research internships created through the program.

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Teachers, Activists Push School Districts to Drop Calculus in the Name of Equity

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Teachers and activists are pushing for high schools to drop their calculus courses to increase equity as many minority and low-income students don’t have access to the class, according to The 74, a nonprofit news organization covering education.

In the 2017-2018 school year, 76% of schools with “low student of color enrollment” offered calculus while 52% of schools with a high proportion of students of color offered the advanced math course, according to a Learning Policy Institute report. The course, teachers and activists argued, is disproportionately offered to students not of an underrepresented group, giving other students an advantage in the college admissions process, according to The 74.

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Scholars Work at ‘Decolonizing Light’ to Combat ‘Colonialism in Contemporary Physics’

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A group of scholars at Concordia University in Montreal have dedicated themselves to “Decolonizing Light.”

The effort is not about banning flashlights, but rather advancing other ways of knowing about light, science and physics.

The group’s tagline is “Tracing and countering colonialism in contemporary physics.”

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Stanford Professor Single-Handedly Debunks California’s Woke Math Standards

Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

A Stanford University professor slammed California’s proposed Math Framework for being “false” and “misleading.”

Brian Conrad, Stanford University mathematics professor and director of Undergraduate Studies in Math, did a deep dive into the California Math Framework (CMF), which he laid out on his website. The proposal frequently contradicts the findings of academic studies its writers cite, according to Conrad’s analysis.

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Study: Women Less Likely to Pursue STEM Careers in All 80 Countries Surveyed

Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Young women were five times less likely than young men to aspire toward STEM careers in 80 different countries, according to research and a report from the Institute for Family Studies published in late January.

Women preferred “people-oriented” careers such as nursing or teaching, while men preferred “things-oriented” careers generally falling into STEM or blue-collar categories, researchers reported.

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University Spent $80,000 on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training for STEM Faculty

Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

A recent FOIA request filed by Campus Reform revealed that the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) spent $80,000 on a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training created by the Kardia Group, LLC. The agreement was signed in 2018 and included two series of meetings and workshops for the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters.

The Kardia Group was founded in 2004 and describes themselves as a “leading strategic partner in the transformation of the culture, functionality, and success of the academic endeavor.” Its website lists resources and services ranging from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to “transformational change for groups.”

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Commentary: Ground Zero of Woke

Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

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Federal Grant Gives College Nearly $500K to Increase ‘Racial/Ethnic and Gender Diversity in STEM’

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Alverno College in Wisconsin recieved a $499,983 grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase “racial/ethnic and gender diversity in STEM.”

According to the NSF grant abstract, the money will be used to “directly engage” 400 students at the college who are currently enrolled in STEM courses and focus on connecting women and minority students to their “professional and social communities.”

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