Invisible Student Scientists: How Graduate School Science and Engineering Programs Shortchange Black, Hispanic, and Women Students - Softcover

Fisher, Robert Leslie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761866167 ISBN 13: 9780761866169

Publisher: University Press of America, 2015

Synopsis

In this book, Robert Leslie Fisher contends that thanks to misguided university and government policies, we have created a science elite that does not represent the demographics of the nation. We need to recruit more native-born women and underrepresented minorities into graduate programs in order to maintain our nation’s prosperity and military strength. Fisher draws on sample data from 1300 male and female respondents from White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian students. He shows how the student culture of graduate schools in science and engineering sees women, Black, and Hispanic students as outsiders and deprives these budding scientists and research engineers of the collaborators they need to succeed in their careers. Fisher argues that we must inspire female, Black, and Hispanic graduate students to believe they can succeed in their careers by (1) changing the student culture in graduate schools’ science and engineering programs to be more inclusive, (2) removing burdensome undergraduate educational duties from graduate students so that they can concentrate on mastering the difficult subject matter of their disciplines, and (3) hiring more women and under-represented minorities as faculty to serve as role models.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Leslie Fisher is an independent researcher and author of The Research Productivity of Scientists and Invisible Student Scientists. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a special school for science-oriented students, and has degrees in sociology from City College of New York (B.A. cum laude), and Columbia University (M. Phil.). Prior to retiring in 2003, Fisher had a varied career as a criminal justice planner, research contracts officer, and program evaluator in New York State government. He is now an author and director of a nonprofit consulting organization in the Capital District of New York. Fisher is the author of three previous nonfiction books about the gender gap in science, all published by University Press of America, and has contributed articles on medical research. He also published Vanilla Republic, a mystery novel.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of America
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761866167
• ISBN 13: 9780761866169
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 166