About the Forum
Later this year, Bayer Corporation, as part of its award-winning Making Science Make Sense® program, will build on its ongoing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education diversity initiatives by hosting a second STEM Education Diversity Forum – this time in California’s San Francisco Bay area.
As you know, one of the biggest challenges the U.S. faces today is the dwindling number of scientists and engineers we produce at a time when we also face increasing competition for this STEM talent from other countries. At the same time, there exists in this country a vast untapped talent pool in those Americans who traditionally have been underrepresented in STEM fields, including women, African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians.
Developing this talent pool takes on even greater urgency in light of shifting demographics that show in the very near future, we will rely increasingly on this talent pool to make the discoveries, advances and innovations that have and continue to keep the United States the world’s scientific and technological leader.
That is the purpose of all of Bayer’s STEM education diversity activities: To further develop this talent pool by introducing the nation’s STEM companies to various “Best Practice” K-12 STEM education programs that have a proven track record of success when it comes to helping girls and minority students to participate and achieve in STEM.
As a company that has long embraced its corporate social responsibility to strengthen STEM education in the United States, we at Bayer also are keenly aware of the critical need to develop a more diverse STEM pipeline and workforce. We also know that exemplary education programs exist that are closing the diversity gap in STEM subjects and that business can engage successfully in partnerships with these programs to help them grow.
Corporate America has a significant role to play here. In fact, our most recent Bayer Facts of Science Education survey of Fortune 1000 STEM executives revealed that nearly all executives acknowledge their companies’ responsibility to help improve STEM education and believe it is important. And, they are walking the walk, with nine-in-10 reporting their companies or employees participate in pre-college education programs that attract, encourage and sustain girls’ and minority students’ interest in math and science.
Our hope is that these companies, and their emerging STEM company counterparts, will choose to support and/or replicate one or more of these programs in their local communities.
Following is a brief overview of Bayer’s STEM education and diversity program components:
- Bayer’s daylong West Coast STEM Education Diversity Forum will be held in San Francisco at the Hotel Nikko on Thursday, December 11, 2008. It will present Best Practice K-12 STEM programs with proven track records of helping girls and minority students to participate and achieve in STEM. Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the nation’s first African-American female astronaut, who is also a chemical engineer, physician and educator, will moderate the forum.
- In 2009, Bayer intends to publish and disseminate to the STEM corporate community a second volume of its Best Practices in K-12 Science Education Compendium. Currently, we are accepting best practice program submissions. Click here to see an online version of the criteria and submission form.
- Planting the Seeds for a Diverse U.S. STEM Pipeline: A Compendium of Best Practice K-12 STEM Education Programs
- STEM Education Diversity Forum Highlights Report that synthesizes the major findings and ideas that emerged during Bayer’s first forum in Washington, D.C. in September 2006.
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