Transcript Chasing the hundred: the student pipeline, future of

Chasing the hundred: the student pipeline,
future of seismology, and what E&O might do
Seth Stein
With assistance from:
Jill Karsten (AGU)
Roman Czujko (AIP)
Chris Keane (AGI)
E&O: MULTIPLE ASPECTS
Increasing interest in E&O activities within NSF, the earth
science community, and IRIS in particular raises the question of
what we should be doing.
Although there are many interesting ideas and ongoing
programs, it is unclear what are the overall goals and means.
Different aspects require different approaches:
- Public understanding
- K-12 education
- General undergrad education
-Undergrad majors
- MS programs
-PhD programs
PhD STUDENT SHORTAGE
A common faculty discussion topic is the difficult
of recruiting Ph.D. students.
Typical recommendations involve improving a
department's marketing via fancier posters, web
pages, and advertisements at meetings, etc.
and/or making offers more attractive via higher
stipends or longer guaranteed funding.
How likely is this to work?
PhD STUDENT SUPPLY
Data on student enrollments from AGI, AGU, NSF and the
American Institute of Physics show that the problem is the
small pool of potential students.
At present, 80-100 Ph.D. students - about 1 per IRIS member
institution - graduate per year in geophysics/seismology.
Hence recruiting efforts face the challenge of preserving or
increasing a given institution's share of this small group.
In the short time this is a zero sum game.
Why is this? Could we do better? Should we?
THE PIPELINE
Graduating Ph.D.s form one end of a leaky pipeline.
About 3000 (numbers reported vary) BS degrees are
granted each year in geosciences.
About 25% go to graduate study, and about 20% of MS
graduates continue their education.
These losses are partially offset by entrants with
degrees in other fields, so
about 350 Ph.D.s per year are granted in all geoscience.
PIPELINE PROBLEM HAS WORSENED
BS awards peaked at about 7200 in 1982, declined, rose again to about
4500 in 1997, and declined to about 2000 in 2000. Ph.D. awards have
remained roughly constant.
AGI
AIP ESTIMATE IS SIMILAR (though not quite as dramatic)
Geoscience Degrees Granted, 1973-2000
Source: NSF WebCASPAR
8,000
7,000
6,000
BS
5,000
PhD
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
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DEGREES
MS
YEAR
Total number of bachelor's degrees
granted by discipline, 1985 to 2000
100000
90000
80000
70000
Legend
Psychology
Engineering
Biolog Sci
Comp Sci
Math
Chemistry
Geosci
Physics
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
1985
1990
1995
YEAR
2000
AIP
GEOLOGY ~~ PHYSICS: TINY SHARE
Share hasn’t grown - actually shrunk - as student numbers grew
AIP
W/O ENTRY OF WOMEN DECLINE WOULD HAVE
BEEN EVEN MORE DRAMATIC
Percent of Bachelor's Degrees Earned by
Women in Selected Fields, 1986 to 2000
60
All Fields
Life Sci.
50
Mathematics
Chemistry
40
Geoscience
30
Physics
Engineering
20
10
0
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88
90
92
94
96
Year of Degree
98
2000
AIP
WHAT TO DO?
Perhaps Ph.D. enrollments respond to job supply and hence
are in rough balance. Ideally, with ~15000 faculty and 3%
retirement rates, ~450 positions would occur annually if
department sizes remained constant (not the case).
Presently, about half of Ph.D.s go into postdocs, about 30%
go directly into academic positions (not all tenure track), and
the rest into industry and government.
There is a general feeling that the postdoc duration is
increasing.
Maybe we shouldn’t encourage major growth in Ph.D.
numbers unless additional opportunities for these talented
young scientists arise.
ONE HELP: GEOPHYSICS HAS GROWN AS SHARE OF
EARTH SCIENCE FACULTIES
AGI
AGI
10,000 !
COULD WE BOOST UNDERGRAD MAJOR NUMBERS?
Although “rocks for jocks” / “moons for goons” survey courses are
popular (and generate TA funding), few of these students become
majors, presumably because they chose the courses as easy paths
through distribution requirements.
At Northwestern, 80-90% of 100 level class enrollments are to
satisfy distribution requirements, 50-80% of class report spending
< 3 hrs/week on class outside lecture
Could we attract better students
And encourage majors?
Some schools seem to.
Need to know more about what’s
been/being tried and how it works
K-12?
Lots of interesting activities seek improved K-12 earth
science education.
Easy to do neat things at elementary/middle level - hard to tell
effect
In high school, hard to overcome the "earth science is for
dummies" image: physics/chemistry/biology considered “real
science”
Could substantive text/program be developed?
High school curricula are already packed, hard to find room
for more
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT WHY U.S. STUDENTS
DO/DON’T MAJOR IN EARTH SCIENCE
Study of Dutch high school students (Snieder & Spiers, EOS, 2002)
“In general students do not choose a field because it is interesting or socially
relevant. This observation was in strong conflict with attempts to attract students
by trying to convince them how interesting and socially relevant Earth sciences
are!”
“Future prospect for a successful career is the major motivation when choosing a
field, and the perceived success of a career is usually measured in terms of its
financial rewards”
“The distinction between different sub-disciplines such as geochemistry,
geophysics, and hydrology within the Earth sciences is confusing and makes the
field less attractive”
“Earth scientists are not a group to which students would like to belong (having a
beard is sufficient to qualify one as a nerd)”
PUBLIC OUTREACH SEEMS TO BE DOING WELL
Exciting and visual story to tell
TV, radio, print coverage of earth science / geophysics / seismology seems good
Would be nice to have actual info about public perception
E&O efforts can help encourage scientists to communicate more/better
“You and the Media” (downloadable AGU publication) is a good start
Small discipline like geophysics / seismology can always use more coverage
Maybe follow
Paris Hilton principle:
All publicity is good!