Where we Stand:  The College of Geosciences Annual Assessment Report to the Associate Provost for Diversity

 

At all levels across the university Texas A&M is increasingly being driven by accountability and assessment data in decision making.  Activities and progress related to diversity and student and faculty recruitment are no exception.  In recent weeks we have completed data gathering efforts in the Dean's office to understand quantitatively where we stand relative to our peers on undergraduate and graduate enrollment trends and faculty and staff diversity.  We have also - with your help - taken a first cut at documenting aspects of our current workplace climate with respect to collegiality, freedom to express ideas and raise difficult issues, diversity, rank, gender, and job function.  All of this serves as only a starting point, and significant additional analysis is required, but we do now have a set of valuable benchmarks against which we can judge the effectiveness of our ongoing efforts.

We asked for comparison data from the University of Texas, Austin Jackson School of Geosciences, Penn State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration, and Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.  None of these comparisons is perfect nor are the data sets complete, but we believe that structurally these are comparable equivalents by size, stature, and range of disciplines.  The detailed numerical data we gathered are presented graphically, available at the bottom this page.  Below we present the main highlights of this comparative analysis.

Undergraduate students

The most complete data we have make a comparison possible between our College, UT Austin Jackson School and Penn State EMS.  As major competing institutions for undergraduates and graduate students in our fields, these comparisons are particularly useful.  We find TAMU and UT to be virtually identical in terms of gender balance in the geosciences, at 37.7% and 39.3% women enrolled respectively.  Recent undergraduate degree completions at TAMU Geosciences show 41% female graduates.  The national average for geoscience degrees granted runs at approximately 40%, so TAMU and UT Austin are effectively at the national norm.

Comparing minority enrollments, particularly under-represented minorities, TAMU Geosciences compares very favorably with national statistics and continues to improve, and also has caught up and will probably soon pass UT Austin in attracting especially Hispanic students.  Our current enrollment stands at 15.5% Hispanic, 2.6% Black, and 0.3 % American Indian (18% under-represented students overall), and our Freshman enrollees for Fall 2012 show a sharp increase in diversity, with 28% under-represented minority (URM) students enrolled.  National averages (and Penn State’s figures) are generally around 4% for Hispanic,  1.5% Black, and 0.7% American Indian, so we compare very well nationally, but clearly there is room for improvement to reach parity with our surrounding region and state (22% Hispanic locally, 38% statewide; ~13% Black and ~1% American Indian both locally and statewide).  UT Austin shows enrollments very close to ours, at 18.6% overall URM, but the growth trends for our enrollments far outstrip theirs.  We ascribe this to the efforts of our coordinated recruiting efforts both on and off campus. 

Graduate students

The other student comparison possible with our current data set is in combined MS and PhDs – graduate enrollments in general. Aggregating MS and PhD enrollments show that 42.1% of the graduate students in TAMU Geosciences are women, which compares favorably to the national average 41.6% for graduate degrees granted to women in the geosciences according to National Science Foundation data.  UT Austin and Penn State both have slightly lower female enrollments of 36.8% and 37.1% respectively, which suggests that the graduate environment for women at TAMU Geosciences is slightly more attractive or welcoming than these peers. At the MS level, TAMU Geosciences is especially successful at attracting and graduating women, with over 55% of recent degrees at this level across the College being awarded to women.

Minority enrollment at the graduate level is also above or at national averages for Hispanic, Black and American Indian graduate students, and TAMU Geosciences is consistently above UT Austin for all of these ethnicities, but again far from where we would like to be – i.e. closer to parity with the population.  Penn State does a better job at attracting Black graduate students than we do (10 enrolled as opposed to 6), so sustained effort in recruiting is needed.  College-wide we have had some recent success in attracting minority graduate students with targeted efforts, so I am optimistic this trend will continue.

Faculty

Faculty headcount data for all four of our peer institutions shows that TAMU Geosciences is in more or less in the middle of the pack with respect to both women and under-represented minorities on the faculty.  If we wish to become a leading institution, we need to be doing better on this front.  This has motivated current and planned efforts to ramp up our recruiting and retention of women and minority faculty, especially in the upcoming busy search season.  The national average in the geosciences is 14.3% women faculty, and we are only slightly better than that at 16.1%.  Penn State and UT Austin are better still at 18.5% and 19.0% respectively and the best among our peers is Oregon State at 25% women faculty members.  Arizona State lags our performance with only 13% female faculty.  With regard to under-represented minorities, Penn State is the clear leader with 7.3% faculty being URM.  Arizona State has 5.6% URM faculty (all Hispanic in this category), TAMU Geosciences at 4.3%, and Oregon State trails us at 1.8% URM (98.1% white faculty). 

What these numbers show is a strong disconnection between faculty composition and student (grad or undergrad) composition, in both directions.  This observation with these peer institutions and a separate nationally-drawn slate of peer institutions has motivated new research into why and how this is true, and what the factors actually are that increase the enrollment and success of women and minorities in the geosciences.