Title: The Hidden STEM Gender Gap: Why Progress at Top Universities Masks a Growing Crisis
Source: Brookings Institution
Authors: Joseph R. Cimpian and Jo R. King
A recent Brookings Institution article, “The Hidden STEM Gender Gap: Why Progress at Top Universities Masks a Growing Crisis,” paints a complex picture of the state of gender equity in STEM higher education. While top universities have made notable progress in narrowing the gender gap in physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS) majors, institutions serving students with lower math achievement are falling further behind.
Over the past two decades, the male-to-female ratio in PECS majors decreased from 2.2:1 to 1.5:1 at universities with the highest average math SAT scores. However, at institutions with the lowest average scores, the gender gap has dramatically widened from 3.5:1 to 7.1:1. This disparity persists even when accounting for differences in math ability, confidence, interests, and academic preparation. The findings point to institutional barriers that disproportionately impact women at less selective schools.
The institutions struggling most with gender equity serve the majority of American students, particularly students of color and those from lower-income families. PECS degrees offer a path to high-paying careers, and research suggests women may see an even greater earnings premium from these majors at less selective institutions compared to their more selective counterparts. By failing to recruit and retain women in PECS programs, we are denying millions the opportunity to benefit from these rewarding fields.
The authors propose several strategies to shrink this gap:
Allocate resources strategically, directing support to the institutions facing the greatest challenges rather than those already making progress.
Adapt proven practices like undergraduate research and peer mentoring to the unique needs and constraints of less-resourced institutions, forging creative partnerships to ensure successful implementation at scale.
Mobilize external partners, from nonprofit organizations to industry groups, to strategically focus their outreach and pathway-building efforts on the schools and communities with the most severe gender imbalances.
Achieving gender equity in STEM will require acknowledging where we are falling short and building the collective determination to change. The success of top universities shows that progress is possible, but it will take targeted interventions and a sustained commitment to extending opportunities to all students. Until then, our celebrations of narrowing gaps will ring hollow for the women left behind.
To read the full Brookings Institution article, click here. The complete research is also available in the journal Sciencehere.
—Alex Zhao
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In the education industry, cloud-based technologies are driving a major revolution. Over 70% of colleges use cloud solutions to streamline operations and cut expenses as they balance budgets. Recent studies show that institutions that have adopted Cloud based higher education management solutions have seen an average reduction of 30% in reduce operational costs in higher educations, enabling them to reinvest in areas that enhance the student experience and drive academic success.
Keeping on budget while managing admissions, money, HR, and learning systems is no small task. Often caught handling costly, ineffective, error-prone fragmented systems are IT teams are assigned. Still, there is a smarter road forward. Higher education management solutions housed on clouds are meant to streamline your life. These tools are meant to combine all those disparate systems, automate tedious chores, and clear the mess of documentation. Consider it your default method for simplifying university processes.
In this blog, we’ll dive deep into how cloud based higher education management solutions are optimizing university operations, enabling smarter decision-making, and unlocking efficiencies that were once unimaginable with legacy systems.
Cloud based higher education management solutions: why?
Cloud technology is improving campus operations, including:
Automating and removing paper workflows saves institutions up to 30%.
Efficiency: Real-time data and better cooperation boost productivity.
Scales smoothly: A rise in students? Program expansion? Your needs shape cloud systems.
Upgraded Security: Multi-factor authentication, encryption, and compliance safeguard data.
Disjointed Systems Breakup
Even the most efficient teams can be slowed by obsolete technologies and paper processes. To reduce redundancies and streamline operations, cloud solutions combine these systems into a single, easy platform. IT teams can focus on strategic innovations instead of segregated platform troubleshooting.
Future-Ready Change
Agility and resilience are essential for the future of higher education. Enabling seamless scalability, strengthening cybersecurity measures, and fostering innovation, cloud-based systems guarantee that your institution remains at the forefront. Not only do these solutions address current challenges, but they also establish your campus as a leader in adapting to the constantly changing educational landscape.
Improving Efficiency with Creatrix Campus Cloud-Based Solutions
Creative Campus provides a complete solution for your university. The automation of financial operations and real-time course registration are meant to simplify and improve your work.
The platform’s easy design and customized modules let you solve campus issues. Because it’s cloud-based, Creatrix Campus integrates across departments, fosters collaboration, and supports growth without costly infrastructure updates.
Dean Hoke and Kent Barnds Relaunch Acclaimed Series to Explore the Future of Small Colleges
Bloomington, Indiana – February 3, 2025 – Small College America, the podcast dedicated to exploring the strengths, challenges, and future of small colleges, is officially relaunching with a new season. The series is co-hosted by Dean Hoke, Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group and former President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators, and Kent Barnds, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
Both Hoke and Barnds are passionate advocates for small colleges, having graduated from Urbana University (OH) and Gettysburg College (PA), respectively. Their personal experiences and professional expertise have shaped their commitment to highlighting the vital role these institutions play in American higher education.
“The landscape for small colleges is shifting rapidly, and we believe now is the time to amplify the conversation about their future,” said Kent Barnds. ” Dean and I are both passionate advocates for these institutions because we’ve experienced firsthand the impact of a small college education.” Dean Hoke stated, “The first season of Small College America confirmed that there is a deep need for dialogue about the opportunities and challenges facing these schools. With this new season, we aim to engage with higher education leaders to explore innovative strategies that will help small colleges not just survive but thrive in an evolving higher education environment.”
The original four-part series first aired on January 10, 2023, and was hosted by Dean Hoke and Tom Davisson, who now serves as Charter Commissioner for the National Association for Academic Excellence (NAAE). The inaugural season featured insightful conversations with small college presidents, including:
Dr. Barry Ryan, Former President of Woodbury University (Burbank, California)
Stefanie Niles, President of Cottey College (Nevada, Missouri)
Ryan Smith, President of the University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College (Rio Grande, Ohio)
Janelle Vanasse, President of Alaska Pacific University (Anchorage, Alaska)
The new season of Small College America will continue its mission of bringing critical discussions to the forefront by interviewing higher education leaders, policy experts, and innovators. The podcast will delve into the evolving role of small colleges, their economic impact, innovative strategies for sustainability, and how they can continue to provide a highly personalized educational experience.
Season Two will begin weekly on March 11th at 11AM Eastern. More details, including upcoming, will be announced soon.
For updates, visit [Podcast Website] or follow Small College America on [Social Media Links].
About the Hosts
Kent Barnds is the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation at Augustana College, where he has been a senior administrator since 2005. A recognized thought leader in enrollment management and institutional strategy, Barnds is deeply invested in the success of small colleges and the students they serve.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy, and formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities.
A híres személyiségek fontos szerepet játszanak a nyilvánosság számos szektorának fejlődésében. Ezek az egyének megváltoztatják a történelem irányát, meghatározzák a következő éveket, és inspirálják utódaikat is. A kezelés, a vállalkozói szellem, a kreativitás, a technika és a sport – ezek az irányok az emberi lét szerves részét képezik, és fejlődésüket nemcsak a tudományos-technikai haladás, hanem olyan kiemelkedő egyéniségek is előidézték, akiknek tevékenysége, sikerei jelentős nyomot hagytak a kultúrában és a társadalomban. Ha érdekli a téma a las vegas casino corvin, követheti a linket https://znaki.fm/hu/places/las-vegas-casino-corvin-setany/. Ezt a cikket szakértői csapatunk írta, melynek vezetője a András Nagy. Ebben a cikkben különböző szakmai területek ikonikus alakjait elemezzük, akiknek eredményei jelentősen megváltoztatták a közösséget.
Jelentős személyek az orvostudomány területén
Az orvostudomány az emberi tevékenység egyik kulcsfontosságú területe, ahol kiemelkedő emberek eredményei milliók életét menthetik meg.
Híres orvosok és tudósok erőfeszítéseinek köszönhetően a társadalom megtanulta megbirkózni a betegségekkel, meghosszabbítja az életet és javítja az életszínvonalat.
Példák orvosokra:
Hippokratész egy ókori görög orvos, akinek munkái lefektették a modern orvoslás alapjait. Hangot adott annak a véleményének, hogy a betegségeknek természetes tényezői vannak, és olyan kimutatási és kezelési technikákat hozott létre, amelyek ma is hasznosak.
Avicenna iráni tudós, aki fontos orvosi munkákat írt, amelyek hatással voltak az orvostudományra a középkorban.
Florence Nightingale az ápolás megteremtője. Firenze nemcsak a kórházi körülményeket javította, hanem a higiénia terén is fontos eredményeket ért el.
Dr. Fleming az a tudós, aki felfedezte a penicillint, az első gyógyszert, amely milliók életét mentette meg.
Ezek és az orvostudomány más kiemelkedő alakjai jelentősen hozzájárultak a közösség egészségének megőrzéséhez, megváltoztatták a kezelési szemléletet és a betegségek látásmódját.
Név
Loot
Művészet
A penicillin felfedezése
XX. század
Jelentések az orvostudományról és a filozófiáról
XI. század
A modern orvoslás alapjai
Kr.e. 5. század
Orvosi gyakorlat megváltoztatása
XIX. század
Jelentős személyiségek a kereskedelemben
Egyes üzleti vezetők az előrehaladás és az innováció ikonjává válnak, és ötleteiknek és törekvéseiknek köszönhetően befolyásolják a világot.
Az üzlet a gazdasági fejlődés motorjaként szolgál, amely új lehetőségeket nyit meg, és munkahelyeket is biztosít.
Minták sikeres vállalkozókról:
Az alapító Henry Ford úttörő, aki bevezette az autók futószalagos gyártását. Koncepciói megváltoztatták az autóipart, így a járművek könnyebben elérhetőek lettek a tömegek számára.
Steve Jobs újító – az Apple vállalat társalapítója, amely technológiai áttörést ért el a fogyasztói elektronika területén. Találmányai, mint például a MacBook és az iPhone, átalakították az innovatív eszközök interakciós módszereit.
Ilon Musk a Tesla és a SpaceX vállalat megalkotója. Kezdeményezései az elektromos járművek ágazatában és az űrrepülésekben megnyitják az emberiség hozzáférését egy ökológiailag és technológiailag fejlettebb időhöz.
Richard Branson a Virgin Group márka alapítója, egy olyan vállalat, amely különféle iparágakban dolgozik, a show-biznisztől az űrutazásig.
Az ilyen cégvezetők bebizonyították, hogy az innovációnak és az ambíciónak köszönhetően még a legambiciózusabb projektekben is lehet fantasztikus eredményeket elérni.
A kultúra kiemelkedő alakjai
A tehetséges alkotók rengeteg embert inspirálnak kreatív stílusukkal, és olyan remekműveket hoznak létre, amelyek sok éven át relevánsak maradnak.
A művészeti tevékenység mindig is jelentős szerepet töltött be a kultúrában, megmutatva az emberi élet összetettségét és összetettségét. a világról alkotott nézetek formálása.
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Minták kiemelkedő művészekből:
Da Vinci a reneszánsz korszak egyik legnagyobb festője, aki olyan remekműveiről ismert, mint a Mona Lisa és az Utolsó vacsora. Művészeti tevékenysége mellett kiemelkedő kutató és feltaláló volt, ami a művelődéstörténet kivételes alakjává teszi.
Charlie Chaplin színész és rendező nagyszerű színész és rendező, aki jelentős mértékben hozzájárult a mozi világához. Filmjei, különösen az “Aranyláz” és a “A nagyváros fényei” című filmek a világfilmes örökség klasszikusává váltak.
Marilyn Monroe Hollywood ikonikus alakja és a 20. század egyik legnépszerűbb színésznője, akinek arculata ikonikussá vált.
Quentin Tarantino rendező kortárs filmrendező, akinek olyan filmjei, mint a Pulp Fiction, megváltoztatták a zsánermozi felfogását, és új mércét állítottak fel a moziban.
A kreativitás különleges erővel hat világképünkre, és az ilyen művészek továbbra is milliókat inspirálnak munkáikkal.
Legendás alakok a tudományos és műszaki szférában
A tudósok és mérnökök olyan tudományos és technológiai áttöréseket érnek el, amelyek az élet minden területét meghatározzák.
A tudományos kutatás és a technológiai innováció olyan területek, amelyeken kiemelkedő gondolkodók fontos felfedezéseket tesznek, amelyek alakítják jövőnket. Ha érdeklik a Magyarországgal kapcsolatos aktuális kiadványok, javasoljuk, hogy látogassa meg a https://znaki.fm/hu/ információs oldalt. ahol újságírók mesélnek a legaktuálisabb eseményekről és témákról.
Híres tudósok mintái:
Einstein Albert a relativitáselmélet szerzője, amely megváltoztatta a térlátást, az idő múlását és a gravitáció természetét.
Madame Curie az első nő, akit Nobel-díjjal tüntettek ki. Maria radioaktivitás-kutatása új lehetőségeket nyitott az orvostudományban és a fizikában.
Nikola Tesla egy feltaláló, akinek az elektromosság és a rádiókommunikáció területén végzett kutatásai nagy hatással voltak a technológia fejlődésére.
Stephen Hawking kozmológus egy legendás tudós, aki a fekete lyukak és a kvantummechanika tanulmányaival új távlatokat nyitott a világegyetem tanulmányozásában.
Ezek a tudósok megváltoztatták a világról alkotott képünket, és modern eszközöket adtak az emberiségnek a további kutatáshoz és innovációhoz.
Híres alakok a sportban
Emellett a sport javítja a fizikai állapotot, és egyben motiválja az embereket a sikerek útján, feltárva a fizikai testben rejlő kimeríthetetlen potenciált.
Példák kiemelkedő sportolókra:
Michael Jordan kosárlabda-legenda a történelem egyik vezető kosárlabdázója, sportsikerei az egész iparágra hatással voltak.
Usain Bolt gyorsasági sportoló, akit a bolygó leggyorsabb emberének tartanak. 100 és 200 méteres sprinttávon elért sporteredményeit még senki sem szárnyalta felül.
Serhii Bubka rúdugrás ukrán atléta, aki számos világrekordot állított fel rúdugrásban.
Simone Biles amerikai tornász, aki az olimpián és a nemzetközi bajnokságokon nyújtott hihetetlen teljesítményének köszönhetően új mércét állít fel sportágában.
A felsorolt sportolók nemcsak nagy sikereket értek el a választott sportágakban, hanem rengeteg embert inspiráltak sportsikereikre.
Következtetések
Az orvostudomány, a kereskedelem, a művészet, a tudomány és a sport kiemelkedő személyiségei jelentős hatással vannak a társadalom fejlődésére.
Erőfeszítéseiknek köszönhetően lehetőségünk van a legújabb technológiák bevezetésére, életünk meghosszabbítására, valamint a kultúra, a technológiai fejlődés és a sportversenyek modern korszerű élvezetére.
Hozzájárulásuk nemcsak a mai világot változtatja meg. , hanem az új nemzedékeket is új magasságok megszerzésére ösztönzi.
Back in 2022, just after the last provincial election, I wrote a piece looking forward a few years and predicted that the years 2023-25 were going to be chaos for Ontario postsecondary institutions. And I was right, although I can’t claim to have anticipated any of the specifics. Given that we are now going back into an election, I thought I would try to look into a crystal ball and look at what the province’s postsecondary system will look like financially if our glorious premier is re-elected for another four years.
To do this, of course, requires making a few assumptions, not just about what will happen in the future but, given the inevitable Canadian delays in producing data, what’s been happening in the past two years as well. Hard data on the student numbers which drive aggregate tuition income does not exist beyond 2022 because the provincial government is deliberately suppressing data on this subject. Yes, really. Until last year, Ontario had one of the best records in the country when it came to openness on enrolment stats, usually publishing quite detailed data within six months of end of the calendar year. As of today, it has now been twenty-one months since the last update. By complete coincidence, the data that has not been updated covers the exact period where provincial government was asleep at the wheel in terms of oversight of international student intake. Can’t have that data going out before an election, I guess.
Anyways, that means the following projections require a bit more educated guess work than usual. For transparency, here are my assumptions:
I have based student number projections for 2023-24 and 2024-25 on data I could find from the Ontario Universities Application Centre (OUAC) and from federal open data on student visas issued up to fall 2024.
I am assuming that international student enrolment will bottom out in 2025-26 and resume 10% annual growth thereafter, and that domestic enrolment will grow 2% per year, in line with projected increases in the 18-21 population. The assumptions on international students might be too generous, in which case all my projections will be too optimistic. Keep that in mind as you read this.
I am assuming that the provincial government will not add any new funding to the system beyond what was announced in the run-up to the 2024 budget, but that the extra funding announced as a response to the Blue-Ribbon Panel will be maintained past 2027.
I am assuming the freeze on tuition will be maintained, but a gentle (but below-inflation) rise in average tuition will continue due to students switching from cheaper humanities courses to more expensive STEM ones.
I am going to focus on the main sources of institutional operating income, which are tuition fees and provincial operating government. I am excluding from this analysis anything to do with income from federal or private non-student sources.
Let’s start with public expenditures on postsecondary education. The problem of falling real public expenditures began well before Ford took power, but this trend has worsened under Ford. Until last year, he consistently allowed inflation to erode funding. The only time he increased institutional funding was in 2024, after the report of the blue-ribbon panel, and even then the three-year package he announced barely allows funding to keep up with inflation. When this new funding evaporates in 2027, the prospects for any new funding are uncertain: I think it is more likely that the government will revert to its previous practice of holding funding constant in nominal dollars but fail to provide any help to offset inflation. Assuming this is true, the path of government funding for Ontario postsecondary institutions will be as shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Ontario Government Transfers to Post-Secondary Education, 2001-02 to 2028-29 (projected) in Billions of $2023
Now of course, public funding only makes up about a third of total funding in Ontario postsecondary education. What happens when you include tuition fees? Well, it looks like the graph below, Figure 2. Again, as you can see, the “take-off” point for the system we have today clearly lies in the McGuinty/ Wynne period, but boy howdy did the Ford team double-down on the model it inherited.
Figure 2: Total Operating Income by Source and Sector, Ontario Public Postsecondary Institutions, 2001-02 to 2028-29 (projected) in Billions of $2023
Now, this is one of those cases where it helps to disaggregate what is going on in the system and look separately at what’s going on in the universities and colleges. Let’s start with colleges in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Total Operating Income by Source, Ontario Colleges, 2001-02 to 2028-29 (projected) in Billions of $2023
I’ve been writing about the big fall in college revenues for a few months now, but even I find this graph shocking. Total operating income to the college system is going to crash by about a third between 2023-24 and 2024-25 and then probably will start to recover thereafter. Basically, you should consider the period 2015-2025 as a huge fever dream that is now breaking and sending the system back to exactly where it was a decade ago, minus about 15% of its public funding and a similar drop in the number of students (domestic enrolment really crashed over the past decade).
Figure 4 repeats the exercise for universities. This one might seem puzzling for many, because it appears to show very little drop in funding in the 2020s. I mean, yes, there’s a teeny dip in 2024, but absolutely nothing like what we see in the colleges—so why are universities screaming about their untenable financial positions?
Figure 4: Total Operating Income by Source, Ontario Universities, 2001-02 to 2028-29 (projected) in Billions of $2023
Well, the answer is that universities don’t have a revenue challenge so much as a cost challenge. Colleges have an enormous amount of freedom to rearrange or reduce staff. Universities, to put it mildly, do not, partly because of tenure and partly because collective agreements between universities and faculty contain clauses about layoffs and financial exigency which impose very high barriers and costs to any institution that tries to reduce academic headcount. This forces institutions to force as many cuts as possible on non-academic staff and services, but there are limits to how much you can do before students start turning away.
Plus, of course, universities simply got in the habit of getting ever larger. Looke at what happened in the 18 years before the Ford government took power: 17 straight years where the average annual income growth after inflation was 5%. The internal political economy of Ontario universities simply evolved so that growth less than 5% was believed to be “austerity.” Since Ford came to power, annual growth has been effectively zero, even as institutions are dealing with the costs of accommodating the major shift in students from humanities to STEM. The gears inside universities are grinding to a halt and even going in reverse this year and next. And universities are—by design—poorly engineered to deal with a lack of growth.
So, what can be done? Well, in the world we all wished we lived in, this situation would be attracting serious political attention. But it’s not. Ontarians quite like having world-class universities and colleges; they just don’t feel like paying for it. Had the cuts started a few weeks earlier, or had the election been called a few weeks later, the current Program Apocalypse (which seems more than on course to deliver the closure of over 1000 programs across the province) might have become what political animals call “a kitchen-table issue,” that is an issue so important than voters talk about it at the kitchen table. Kids not being able to get into the programs they want to get into because they have been shut due to budget cuts? Yeah, that’s a kitchen table issue. One that might yet have some impact on the election, though probably not a decisive one.
Could institutions do more to make this a kitchen table issue? Yes, they could. At the university level, institutions could be more overt in saying they will no longer be able to support as many spots in expensive, high-demand programs. At the college level, institutions could be more aggressive about closing programs in the skilled trades. So far, they have been very reluctant to do this even though their high cost-per-student should probably lead a lot more of them to be on the chopping block if financial sustainability were a major issue. But institutions are reluctant to do this because it’s hard to play chicken with the government without seeming to play chicken with the general public. And the only way things could get worse for institutions right now is if they lose what’s left of the public sympathy they have. Which is to say: yes, they could be doing more, but it’s easy enough to explain their hesitation in doing so.
Anyways, sorry to readers in the rest of the country for all the Ontario-centricity. If you’d like to know more about how the mess in Ontario—partly due to inept oversight by the Ford team and partly due to an inept response by federal immigration minister Marc Miller—affects the rest of the country (and it does), have a listen to my guest appearance on the Missing Middle podcast last week. Good fun.
During my five years working in postdoctoral affairs at two higher education institutions, current postdoctoral associates have often shared their frustrations with me.
Some feel they aren’t getting the credit they deserve in their research group. Others share they feel pressured to work long hours. And in terms of relationships with their mentors, some sense a lack of feedback and support from their faculty supervisor, while others feel they are micromanaged and lack autonomy.
When I hear these things, it strengthens my belief that many of the problems that emerge during the postdoctoral experience could be reduced by more proactive communication prior to an individual accepting a position. Talking through personality, leadership and communication styles can help both postdocs and mentors better understand the relational dynamics, as well as the expectations and needs each bring to the partnership.
So, while earlier “Carpe Careers” pieces have focused on the pragmatics of a postdoc job search and discovering postdoc opportunities, including those outside the traditional academic postdoc, I want to share the thought process late-stage Ph.D. students should be working their way through prior to and during a postdoc search, as well as advice on navigating the start of a postdoc position. My hope is that by carefully considering their own values and needs, graduate students can better understand if a postdoc position is the best career path for them, and if so, which postdoc position might be the right fit.
The Right People and the Right Questions
The first piece of advice I would give any prospective postdoc is that you must take ownership of your postdoc search. This includes talking to the right people and asking the right questions, which begins with asking yourself the most critical one: Why am I considering a postdoc position?
People pursue postdocs for a variety of reasons. None are necessarily more appropriate than others, but your motivations for engaging in a postdoc should be clear to you. Some motivations might include:
To gain training and increase metrics of scholarly productivity in order to be a more competitive candidate for positions at research-intensive universities.
To learn new skills or techniques that will increase marketability, perhaps outside academia.
For international trainees, a postdoc path may allow for continued work in the United States while pursuing a green card and citizenship.
To increase time to think about career paths.
To explore a geographic location that might seem ideal for one’s career prospects.
There is nothing wrong with any of these reasons, but understanding your reason will help you find the postdoc position that best fits your academic and professional journeys.
Understanding Expectations
Even if your goal is not to pursue an academic career and you don’t believe you will be in a postdoc position longer than a year, it is critical to take the postdoc experience seriously as professional experience, and accept and understand its responsibilities and deliverables.
I fully acknowledge that the postdoc role can be nuanced and, ideally, it is some hybrid of employment, extended training and apprenticeship under a more senior faculty member. In nearly all cases, however, an individual is hired into a postdoc role to help make progress on a funded research project. This may involve funding from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or National Science Foundation, a nonprofit foundation, or the institution itself. Regardless, a postdoc is hired to help deliver important outputs associated with a project that’s being paid for. From this perspective, the postdoc’s job is to help move the project forward and ultimately produce data and findings for further dissemination. Successful postdocs understand what these deliverables are and their importance to their faculty mentor.
Of course, this does not mean postdocs should devote 100 percent of their time to producing research products. In fact, many years ago, the Office of Management and Budget made clear to federally funded U.S. agencies supporting graduate students and postdocs that such roles have dual functions of employee and trainee. The notice specifically states that postdocs “are expected to be actively engaged in their training and career development under their research appointments.” Additionally, the NIH is seeking to explicitly specify the percentage of time a postdoc should be devoting to their career and professional development through recommendations from a Working Group on Re-envisioning NIH-Supported Postdoctoral Training. In a report published in December 2023, the group suggests postdocs should have a minimum of 10 percent of their effort devoted to career and professional development activities.
It’s clear that the job of a postdoc is to both deliver on research products and invest in one’s own training and professional development. Given the need to effectively balance these two activities, it is critical that prospective postdocs seek to understand how the group they might work in, or the faculty member they might work with, understands the position. And likewise, it is important for the candidate to convey their expectations to the same parties.
A proactive conversation can be intimidating for some, but the Institute for Broadening Participation has created a list of questions taken from a National Academies report on enhancing the postdoc experience to get you started.
Exploring the Landscape
Potential postdocs should also consider speaking to current and/or past postdocs with experiences in groups and with people with whom they are interested in working. Past postdocs can often more freely enlighten others as to faculty members’ working and communications styles and their willingness to provide support.
Another important factor prospective postdocs should consider is the support and resources institutions provide. This can range from employee benefits and postdoc compensation to career and professional development opportunities.
A critical resource to help you understand the current institutional landscape for postdoc support in the United States is the National Postdoctoral Association’s Institutional Policy Report and Database. You can leverage this data by benchmarking the benefits of institutions you are considering for your postdoc. For example, in the most recently published report from 2023, 52 percent of responding U.S. institutions reported offering matching retirement benefits to their employee postdocs.
Considering the entire package around a postdoc position is yet another important step in evaluating if a potential position aligns with your academic, professional and personal goals.
Putting Together a Plan
Once you have decided to accept a postdoc position, I advise communicating proactively with your new faculty supervisor to ensure all expectations are aligned. A great document to help with framing your potential responsibilities is the Compact Between Postdoctoral Appointees and Their Mentors from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Finally, I highly encourage any new postdoc to create an individual development plan to outline their project completion, skill development and career advancement goals. This can be shared with the supervisor to ensure both parties’ project completion goals match and the postdoc’s other goals will be supported. If faculty supervisors could benefit from additional resources that stress the importance of IDPs, I suggest this piece published in Molecular Celland this Inside Higher Ed essay.
Deciding whether to pursue a postdoc position, and how to pursue one proactively, is important to maximize your future prospects as a Ph.D. holder. Leveraging this advice, plus that of other online resources— such as the Strategic Postdoc online course from the Science Communication Lab and the Postdoc Academy’s Succeeding as a Postdoc online course and mentoring resources—will help you to choose a position with intention and engage in deliberate discussions prior to accepting it. This will increase the likelihood that your postdoc experience will align with your needs and help successfully launch the next stage in your career.
Chris Smith is Virginia Tech’s postdoctoral affairs program administrator. He serves on the National Postdoctoral Association’s Board of Directors and is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing a national voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.
First-generation students make up around 20 percent of the University of South Carolina student population.
University of South Carolina
While first-generation students are a growing population in higher education, they remain less likely to retain or complete a credential, compared to their continuing-generation peers.
A new initiative at the University of South Carolina unifies assistance for students who are the first in their families to attend college to guide them through the university and provide a sense of belonging. The First-Generation Student Center is connected to a first-generation living-learning community and offers embedded academic and socioemotional support, which reduces the need for students to seek support independently.
“We know from our campus data on students in our long-standing TRIO program that they do not have the gaps in retention and graduation that our other first-generation students have,” says Shelley Dempsey, assistant provost for graduation and retention. “However, the program is at max capacity. It was time for our university to provide additional options to serve students in a similar demographic who are not able to be a part of the TRIO program.”
The center was designed to provide increased and more specialized services for learners in a physical space that promotes students’ feelings of belonging.
Dempsey sees particular benefits with first-generation student support, including social capital growth and impacting future generations of their families. But Dempsey also notes improving processes and the student experience for first-generation degree attainment is a benefit for the institution as a whole.
How it works: The First-Generation Center (FGC), which opened in fall 2024 within Maxcy College residence hall on campus, includes a variety of support services and resources.
A dedicated director and assistant director support the center, as does a faculty director, who oversees the living and learning community for 151 first-generation students.
Within the center, students can engage with an embedded mental health counselor for one-on-one in-person or virtual sessions, as well as group sessions on common themes like homesickness and exam anxiety. The Student Success Center has embedded staff presence for drop-in hours, and the FGC hosts other partners across campus, including financial aid, the career center and the meal card office, to provide insights into navigating higher ed.
“The idea is that if we can have all of these offices have a presence in the FGC as a safe space, then we build comfort and confidence with the first-generation students to utilize them in their locations outside the FGC as well,” Dempsey says.
This fall, the center hosted a series called First-Gen Connections that provided relevant information related to campus experiences and deadlines. Athletics staff led a discussion on how students can earn ticket priority for sporting events and offered students a behind-the-scenes tour of the football stadium, for example.
How it’s going: Since launching the center, USC leaders have seen an increase in first-generation student involvement. The center was advertised through meetings, events and campus media including newsletters, but word of mouth has been the most effective marketing campaign.
Several sections of University 101, USC’s first-year seminar program, also meet in the center, which helps raise awareness of the support offerings.
This fall, efforts to include first-generation students were noticeable in mini-grant applications for research and creative projects alongside a mentor, with 55 percent of applicants being first-gen learners.
“We want our first-generation students to know that they are just as capable, and sometimes that takes bringing the info to them in a designated space so that they don’t have to navigate the large university and unfamiliar lingo or jargon for themselves,” Dempsey says.
What’s next: The current target is incoming and first-year students, with the hopes of continuing to involve them as they progress through the institution, but administrators hope to reach graduate students, as well.
“We are in the process of conducting a needs assessment to know how to increase our supports going forward,” Dempsey says.
The university will also track other student metrics including involvement in high-impact practices, GPA, DFW rates, campus involvement and leadership opportunities. Additionally, leaders will compare utilization of support services among first-gen students who engage with the center compared to their peers who are also first-gen but not associated with the center.
If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.
Young people today spend a large amount of time online, with a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report noting teens ages 12 to 17 had four or more hours of daily screen time during July 2021 to December 2023.
This digital exposure can impact teens’ mental health, according to Pew Research, with four in 10 young people saying they’re anxious when they don’t have their smartphones and 39 percent saying they have cut back their time on social media. But online presences can also impact how individuals process information, as well as their ability to distinguish between news, advertisement, opinion and entertainment.
A December Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found seven out of 10 of college students would rate their current level of media literacy as somewhat or very high, but they consider their college peers’ literacy less highly, with only 32 percent rating students as a whole as somewhat or very highly media literate.
A majority of students (62 percent) also indicate they are at least moderately concerned about the spread of misinformation among their college peers, with 26 percent saying their concern was very high.
To address students’ digital literacy, colleges and universities can provide education and support in a variety of ways. The greatest share of Student Voice respondents (35 percent) say colleges and universities should create digital resources to learn about media literacy. But few institutions offer this kind of service or refer students to relevant resources for self-education.
Methodology
Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab polled 1,026 students at 181 two- and four-year institutions from Dec. 19 to 23. The margin of error is 3 percent. Explore the findings yourself here, here and here.
What is media literacy? Media literacy, as defined in the survey, is the ability or skills to critically analyze for accuracy, credibility or evidence of bias in the content created and consumed in sources including radio, television, the internet and social media.
A majority of survey respondents indicate they use at least one measure regularly to check the accuracy of information they’re receiving, including thinking critically about the message delivered, analyzing the source’s perspective or bias, verifying information with other sources, or pausing to check information before sharing with others.
A missing resource: While there are many groups that offer digital resources or online curriculum for teachers, particularly in the K-12 space, less common are self-guided digital resources tailored to young people in higher education.
“Create digital resources for students” was the No. 1 response across respondent groups and characteristics and was even more popular among community college respondents (38 percent) and adult learners (42 percent), which may highlight students’ preferences for learning outside the classroom, particularly for those who may be employed or caregivers.
Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism offers a free self-directed media literacy course that includes webinars with journalism and media experts, as well as exercises for reflection. Similarly, Baylor University’s library offers a microcourse, lasting 10 minutes, that can be embedded into Canvas and that awards students a badge upon completion.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte provides a collection of resources on a Respectful Conversation website that includes information on free expression, media literacy, constructive dialogue and critical thinking. On this website, users can also identify online classes, many of which are free, that provide an overview or a deeper level look at additional topics such as misinformation and deepfakes.
The American Library Association has a project, Media Literacy Education in Libraries for Adult Audiences, that is designed to assist libraries in their work to improve media literacy skills among adults in the community. The project includes webinars, a resource guide for practitioners.
Does your college or university have a self-guided digital resource for students to engage in media literacy education? Tell us more.
By David Lam, Activities Officer at the Students’ Union Bath.
As a child, I always envisioned a very traditional educational journey. I would work my way through high school, do my A levels and then end up at a good university, graduating into a well-paid job. I think this is the journey most undertake or are pointed towards as we were told that university students almost always earn more than those without one. It’s a no-brainer, right?
However, there have been recent conversations about the value of going to university and getting a degree. Being a student is tough right now, because:
Despite these challenges, record numbers of students from TUNDRA 1 (lowest participation) backgrounds have made it to university. A remarkable stat! But why has this happened? I believe university opens so many more opportunities for you besides a good education and, for this reason, people would prefer to earn and learn rather than not doing it at all.
Going to university allows you to access a whole load of new experiences through societies and sports clubs at a relatively low cost and without much commitment. At Bath, there are over 200 groups that you can join, ranging from common interests like football and board games to more niche ones like sailing and gliding. I am sure there are equally wide offers at other universities. Having gone to a state school, I never had the opportunity to try all these things while others from more privileged backgrounds did.
Studying at Bath meant I had access to a wide range of placements for my year in industry. Without the wonderful placement team showing me all the world had to offer, I would not have known where to start, nor would I have ever considered doing a placement. I had always seen movies that involved people going for the best year of their life abroad in a sunny place, making friends for life and being temporarily free from studying. I decided I wanted that experience too, but then the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, meaning my opportunities suddenly shrank. Despite the setback of a global pandemic, I eventually found an opportunity and I ended up working in Madrid as a Physical Education (PE) teacher in an international school. It was the best year of my life, living the dream I’d seen on TV, thanks to my university’s placement team’s support.
Attending university exposes you to people from diverse backgrounds. Coming from a small town in the Midlands, predominantly made up of white British residents, I was one of only three kids of colour in my entire primary school. So arriving in Bath and encountering people who looked like me was a strikingly different experience. Some of my closest friends come from all over the world and, yes, eventually when we all leave Bath, I will be visiting them at some point! The chances of me making such friendships would have been minimal had I stayed in my little town and I would have nowhere near as enlightened an understanding of other cultures as I have now.
University is often the first real taste of freedom for many, marking the transition from life at home to living independently. You are no longer surrounded by an endless supply of clean clothes or home-cooked meals; instead, you are managing your own routine and life, all within the relatively safe university environment. This shift into the big wide world fosters resilience and builds people skills. You will inevitably encounter challenges, like that one housemate who never does their dishes. But part of the university experience is learning to handle these issues yourself, having the tough conversations and solving problems independently rather than relying on someone else to step in. Along the way, you will meet both amazing people and those who are not so great. While no degree teaches you how to interact with others, living with a diverse group of people forces you to learn those essential skills.
For these reasons, I still believe there is value in going to university. While not everyone’s experience is the same, the underlying benefits remain. The university experience represents a beacon of opportunity and opens so many doors. It leads to things you would have never imagined doing, like living in another country for a whole year or writing a blog for a higher education think tank. Seeing the Office for Students turn its attention to the wider student experience, rather than exclusively to education, is welcome. I believe more places should be taking this holistic view and I look forward to seeing what their new strategy comes out with it.
