That’s why we love science. It’s more than a school subject, or the periodic table, or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity to change that world, and to share this accumulated knowledge. It’s a mindset that says we that can use reason and logic and honest inquiry to reach new conclusions and solve big problems.
Barack Obama, 2013
Science courses (specifically introductory ones) make up some of the largest classes within the College as a whole. To use chemistry as a case study: 5/9 courses within the Chemistry major overlap with the pre-medical requirements needed to apply to US medical schools. As a result, approximately a quarter of the incoming first year class (~115 students) enrolls in Introductory Chemistry each fall. In the Fall of 2015, the Chemistry Department offered the first and second most enrolled courses at the College.
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Data (collected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education System) represents Fall 2014 enrollment in Math, Biology and Mathematics. Data on Chemistry majors was not available for use.
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Within the Amherst classroom or lecture hall, minority STEM students often struggle to find peers with common identities to their own. Fall 2014 enrollment data demonstrates that there are a disproportionately small number of Black, Asian, Latinx and Multiethnic students when compared to their white peers. International students are similarly underrepresented, making up anywhere from 9-23% of a given STEM major. This problem only worsens as students progress through the curriculum; in particular, attrition amongst students of color is quite common within upper-level STEM courses.
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Though studies have shown that STEM students benefit immensely from same-race professors, the diversity of the Amherst College faculty is not representative of the student body that it teaches and advises.
71% of the tenured faculty at Amherst self-identify as White – a group larger than the number of Asian, Black and Hispanic professors combined. While specific data on STEM faculty was not available for study, it is not difficult to speculate how these college-wide patterns might also hold within science departments on campus. |
- “Our Committee recognizes that these are complicated problems to address, and we do not intend to place blame; everyone is responsible for a student’s lost opportunity. Addressing these problems is crucial to fulfilling the promises we had made to our students.”
- A Promise to Keep, 1995
Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
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Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
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Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
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Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
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Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
Because Biochemistry and Biophysics (BCBP) is an interdisciplinary discipline, its faculty are often cross-listed in two departments. As such, the department has very few resources (financial or otherwise) devoted to BCBP students.
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Existing Resources
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Resources Requested by Department
Ensure that financial aid grants do not decrease for students who receive geology scholarships.
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