If you have ever seen an episode of “Chopped,” or “Project Runway,” you have a nearly perfect audio and visual image of “The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley,” Part 4 of CNN’s ”Black in America” documentary series that aired this evening. And if you are cringing a bit at the idea of a competitive reality [...]
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November 12th, 2011 We have to be grateful that CNN is drawing attention to issues of race in Silicon Valley. Or do we? The cable network’s documentary “The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley” airs tomorrow, and if it hones in on structural and institutional racism in American computing and electronics industries, great. The world of high tech R&D is [...] August 1st, 2011 Is it safe to assume that when CNN reports on a presidential economic or educational initiative that’s been around for awhile, there’s some serious White House PR effort under way? A “CNNMoney” column today titled “Recovery at Risk: Community Colleges Step in to Fill ‘Skills Gap’” by Tami Luhby lays out the basics of [...] June 11th, 2011 “I want to have as few people touching our products as possible.” So spoke Dan Mishek, the managing director of an industrial plastic products manufacturer in Minnesota, quoted in Catherine Rampell’s NYTimes article yesterday, “Companies Spend on Equipment, Not Workers.” Why would an employer want to keep people away from its products? Germphobia? Elitism? No, [...] February 9th, 2011 Interesting: A paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Cornell researchers Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams has gained a great deal of media attention, as these things go. Reading the coverage, I’d say we’re definitely a culture split between those who want to put gender bias behind [...] October 12th, 2010 Natalie Angier’s angry words about the term ”STEM” in her New York Times column last week (“STEM education has nothing to do with flowers”) are still puzzling to me. She made a few good points: The use of acronyms can indeed lead to confusing and exclusive language. STEM education agendas, simply by grouping certain academic or research activities [...] June 17th, 2010 A major report came out of Georgetown University yesterday, stressing the necessity for a “closer fit” between industrial workforce needs and the design of higher ed curricula in the U.S. I don’t quite see how this (not terribly new) recommendation promises much lasting good for either workers or employers: hasn’t industry been trying to minimize the [...] June 8th, 2010 Thank you, John Tierney! Through your efforts, essentialist thinking about gender and intelligence may keep its hold on Americans for a while longer. Tierney suggests in today’s NY Times “Findings” column that we look with skepticism on a new Congressional proposal to require workshops on gender equity for all those receiving federal science research funding. The [...] May 17th, 2010 I could be projecting here, but it seems to me that 2-year colleges are getting a lot more media attention these days. The coverage brings bad news or good news by the day, depending on how you see the role of higher ed in America. On the worrying side of things for me is a growing conservative enthusiasm [...] February 3rd, 2010 For a quick take on my focus in matters of STEM education, take a look at an op-ed I wrote that appears in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. I hope the piece will call attention to a couple of issues that don’t often make it into discussions of STEM equity. First, I want to stress that we [...] |
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