Maton, Kenneth I., Shauna A. Pollard, Tatiana V. McDougall Weise, and Freeman A. Hrabowski. “
Meyerhoff Scholars Program: A Strengths-Based, Institution-Wide Approach to Increasing Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.”
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine 79, no. 5 (2012): 610-623.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThe Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County is widely viewed as a national model of a program that enhances the number of underrepresented minority students who pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics PhDs. The current article provides an overview of the program and the institution‐wide change process that led to its development, as well as a summary of key outcome and process evaluation research findings. African American Meyerhoff students are 5× more likely than comparison students to pursue a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics PhD. Program components viewed by the students as most beneficial include financial scholarship, being a part of the Meyerhoff Program community, the Summer Bridge program, study groups, and summer research. Qualitative findings from interviews and focus groups demonstrate the importance of the Meyerhoff Program in creating a sense of belonging and a shared identity, encouraging professional development, and emphasizing the importance of academic skills. Among Meyerhoff students, several precollege and college factors have emerged as predictors of successful entrance into a PhD program in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, including precollege research excitement, precollege intrinsic math/science motivation, number of summer research experiences during college, and college grade point average. Limitations of the research to date are noted, and directions for future research are proposed.
Mccrae, Robert R. “
Creativity, Divergent Thinking, and Openness to Experience.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52, no. 6 (1987): 1258-1265.
Publisher's VersionAbstractTest scores of divergent thinking obtained between 1959 and 1972 were correlated with a variety of personality measures administered since 1980. In this sample of 268 men, divergent thinking was consistently associated with self-reports and ratings of openness to experience, but not with neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness. Both divergent thinking and openness were also modestly correlated with Gough's (1979) empirically derived Creative Personality Scale. Several other personality variables mentioned in the literature were also examined; those that were associated with divergent thinking were also generally correlated with openness. These data suggest that creativity is particularly related to the personality domain of openness to experience.
McPherson, Lionel K. “
Righting Historical Injustice in Higher Education.” In
The Aims of Higher Education: Problems of Morality and Justice,
edited by Harry Brighouse and Michael S. McPherson, 113-134. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThis chapter argues that mainstream institutions of higher education in the United States have a distinctive moral responsibility to promote corrective racial justice for Black Americans. It traces this moral responsibility to the fact that these institutions have historically been complacent actors in the perpetuation of racial injustice. According to the author, current corrective policies like affirmative action fail to allow institutions to satisfy their responsibility towards Black Americans. These policies fail, first, because their basis in the value of diversity is morally inadequate, and second, because they do not do enough to remedy Black socioeconomic disadvantage insofar as they fail to increase the number of qualified Black students seeking entry to these institutions. The author calls for additional measures to secure corrective justice. He proposes one such measure: Mainstream institutions of higher education sponsoring “academy schools” directed at serving underprivileged Black students at the primary and secondary levels.
McRae, Paulette, and et al. Recommended Strategies to Increase the Participation of Underrepresented Groups in STEM. Washington, D.C. National Postdoctoral Association, 2012.
Publisher's VersionAbstractMany institutions understand the benefits of diversity and would like to enhance diversity among its students, faculty and staff, including postdocs. This has been easier to accomplish in certain fields, yet the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields lag behind. There have been some positive changes at the level of diversifying the students in the STEM fields, but this is not translating into diversification at the faculty level. The long-term goal is to increase the diversity of STEM faculty. In order to do that, steps need to be taken to ensure that a pipeline of individuals can progress through undergraduate programs into graduate programs through a postdoctoral position and into a tenured faculty position. In order to move qualified individuals through the pipeline these primary components are essential 1) recruitment 2) retention and 3)preparation for the next phase. Below are some suggestions of ways institutions can increase the number of underrepresented minority (URM) participation in STEM fields.
Meyerson, Debra, Karl E. Weick, Roderick M. Kramer, and Tom R. Tyler. “
Swift Trust and Temporary Groups.” In
Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research,
edited by Roderick M. Kramer, 166-195. Thousand Oaks, Calif. Sage, 1996.
Publisher's VersionAbstractArgues that the notion of swift trust is a useful concept for understanding the functioning of temporary systems, drawing on the work of Lawrence Peter Goodman & Richard Alan Goodman (1976 [see abstract 77I5236]) & other secondary literature. Temporary systems are described as contexts in which a premium is placed on making do with whatever information is available & in which swift judgments of trust are mandatory. Aspects of trust, eg, vulnerability, uncertainty, & risk, are discussed in the context of the temporary system, & a number of propositions regarding trust in these situations are proposed: (1) Smaller labor pool & more vulnerability among workers equal more rapidly developed trust. (2) Role-based interaction will lead to more rapid development of trust than person-based interaction. (3) Inconsistent behavior or blurring of roles will lead to less trust. (4) Category rather than evidence-driven information is more important in temporary systems, leading to a faster reduction of uncertainty. (5) Swift trust is more likely at moderate vs low or high levels of interdependence. The role of the contractor in temporary systems is briefly considered. It is concluded that swift trust is a pragmatic strategy for dealing with uncertainties generated by a complex system.
Moreno, José F., Daryl G. Smith, Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen, Sharon Parker, and Daniel Hiroyuki Teraguchi.
The Revolving Door for Underrepresented Minority Faculty in Higher Education: An Analysis from the Campus Diversity Initiative. San Francisco; Los Angeles: The James Irvine Foundation, 2006.
Publisher's Version