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Science Education: The Haverford Experiment

by Freddye L. Hill

‘Science for the People’ Vol. 14, No. 2, March-April 1982, p. 25 — 28

Freddye Hill is the Associate Dean and Director of Minority Affairs at Haverford College in Philadelphia, PA. She is an educator and activist trying to eliminate the dichotomy between science and everyday life. Ms. Hill is concerned with social, political, and economic issues. She teaches sociology and advises students.

Afro-Americans and Puerto Ricans are not receiving an adequate education in science, especially mathematics, that would allow them to pursue college degrees or career training in science or related fields. Haverford College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, has had remarkable success in preparing students for graduate and professional schools and for careers in science. However, it has not had the same degree of success with minority students. Overall, 80 percent of minority students who enter Haverford as freshmen graduate; however, the attrition rate of those who enroll in science or medicine is very high. Over the last eleven years, 92 percent of minority students failed to complete requirements for medical school admission. Only six minority students over the last eleven years have graduated from Haverford with degrees in the natural sciences. Some newly funded programs show excellent promise of changing this record.

In this article I describe this effort, what led to it, and how it addresses the problems that minority science students experience at a mostly white college. Haverford is attempting to reduce the attrition rate, and to attract more minority students into the natural sciences. This effort centers around the development of courses, programs, and strong supportive services. The Quaker heritage of the college, and the increased enrollment of minority students beginning in 1968 are two important internal forces relevant to the development of these programs. Most of the minority students who were admitted to Haverford in 1968 were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and also from very diverse educational backgrounds. They were mostly from the large urban Afro-American and Latino communities of the Northeast and their experiences and outlook were radically dissimilar and distinct from those of most white students, faculty, and administrators.

The early experiences of minority students at Haverford were similar to the experiences of minority students in other elite and not so elite institutions. The major problems were the hegemonic nature of white middle class culture, the lack of minority faculty or administrators who could act as role models, and the fact that the college had too few minority students to form a viable and sustaining community as a counter to what some perceived as the insidious exclusion of minorities from the non-academic life of the community. In essence, attention focused on academic issues and concerns about the quality of life.

Minority students wanted to create an environment to which they could feel connected; an environment tolerant and respectful of their racial, ethnic, and class heritages and experiences; an environment which would allow them to be themselves without feeling a sense of shame or ambiguity. The students needed an environment in which they could develop skills, talents, and interests related to their heritages, their experiences, and the needs of the communities from which they came; and, correspondingly, an environment which would allow them to develop and grow academically and intellectually.

During the early 1970s, the lack of a supportive environment for minority students at Haverford disillusioned a number of them. If one examined all of their paper credentials, they had the ability to fulfill the academic requirements at Haverford; nonetheless, many of them experienced academic difficulty, with less than one-third of the black students who entered in 1968 graduating on schedule. Dean Kannerstein observed, “Many, if not most of the students in academic jeopardy were having problems, not because of any lack of ability, but because of real difficulties in feeling a part of the community.”

Confrontation Sensitizes College Community

Confrontation between the minority students and the rest of the Haverford community began in the early 1970s and continued sporadically until the spring of 1980. The demands, for the most part, have centered around quality-of-life issues and the need for curricular innovations and reforms.

The early confrontations had the effect of dramatically forcing the Haverford community to reaffirm its Quaker traditions and commitments, as well as opening new forms of dialogue between minority students and the rest of the community. During these dialogues, many faculty, administrators, staff, and students committed themselves to improving the overall quality of life for minority students.

The resolution of these confrontations resulted in a number of changes which have had a significant impact on the accessibility of science education for minority students, and have led to a reduction in the high attrition rate of minorities in science.

Pre-First-Year Summer Program

Minority students felt that a key factor in their academic performance and adjustment to Haverford was their inadequate high school backgrounds. They felt that a summer program designed to provide them with academic and social-survival skills was necessary. The Pre-First-Year Summer Program is a five week voluntary program begun in 1972 that now enrolls 50 students a year from Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore. It introduces minority students to the rigorous academic climate and intense social life of the tri-colleges. The program is not remedial; it develops academic skills and other survival skills.

Minority students ordinarily do not interact with faculty, administrators, staff, or upper class students on the same level as white students, especially when they are experiencing difficulty. In the social component of the Pre-First-Year Program, minority students meet faculty, administrators, and staff in an informal setting before classes begin and learn how to interact with them with ease. These students then do better in all of their courses, especially in science.

The program’s social component leads to the development of social bonds and social networks, all of which facilitate academic success and the ability to cope with the many pressures of the college, the problems of late adolescence, and homesickness. Interaction with several upper class Puerto Rican tutor-counselors who work with the program has been especially helpful for students from Puerto Rico; they have begun to feel comfortable, and their learning has been enhanced.

The academic component of the program consists of six courses, of which four are required: writing, mathematics, computer programming, physics with a lab, sociology, and philosophy. The inability of most minority students to perform well on tests in the natural sciences and in mathematics is related to their lack of training in analytical and abstract thinking or in problem solving. We have found that most have been trained to memorize material and find it very difficult and tedious to retrain themselves to think and study in another mode. All of the Pre-First-Year Program courses emphasize the development of strong analytical, quantitative, and problem solving skills. The process of learning how to think of and approach a subject matter in a different way requires a lot of sensitivity on the part of all parties involved, especially faculty and administrators.

Innovative Science Program

The Natural Science Division has made aggressive attempts to ensure that minority students have equal access to majors, and receive both academic and nonacademic support. Haverford has received a grant that has helped provide innovative and experimental courses, supportive services, and financial assistanc to minority students interested in majoring in chemistry, mathematics, or physics. There are chemistry and mathematics courses which are slower paced; they allow minority students, and many white students, to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to do well in the higher level courses. The courses are not remedial, but focus on developing the skills necessary for a science or premed major. They are taught by distinguished members of the Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biology Departments. Since minority students who take the courses get behind in the science sequence, special funds are available for them to take summer courses. This allows them to take a normal course load in their junior and senior years.

This year, the instructors in the Pre-First-Year Program developed an integrated mathematics, physics, and computer course, which has been invaluable in preparing students for calculus and computer science. A real gain of this integrated approach to science has been the demystification of computer programming and calculus. Minority students who had weak backgrounds, or who had extreme math anxiety, have all done reasonably well in these courses this fall. None of them, for example, have failed in any of these courses and all expect to take more computer courses at Swarthmore and the University of Pennsylvania.

A minority faculty member has developed an informal course to teach computer text editing to minority students, faculty, staff, and any other interested persons. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm about learning computer text editing, which, in a strange way, has sparked an interest in computer programming in some of the non-science majors.

One of the earliest concerns of minority students at Haverford was the lack of minority role models at the college. There are no black or Latino professors in the natural sciences; there is one Asian teacher in mathematics. Haverford’s Visiting Scholars Program has addressed part of this problem. Minority scientists are invited to give formal lectures in their areas of research and scholarship; they also informally talk with minority students about the problems minorities face in science, and about how they can use science.

Advising and Tutoring

The two most successful components of Haverford’s supportive service programs are minority advising and tutoring. The advising program consists of special seminars on study skills and problem solving in science which are held during the first weeks of the fall semester. They cover topics such as:

the nature of, and expectations in, science courses at Haverford
what is a good sequence of courses for science majors or for those interested in engineering or medicine
where to get help, if needed
how to approach course material, how to take notes in class and when reading texts or other material
how to recognize what is important and what is not
how to work and study effectively in groups (encouraged by the College) in preparing homework, lab assignments, and in preparing for exams
general techniques of problem solving in science.

Minority students meet with their science advisor five or six times a semester, especially before and after major exams in science courses. The advisor closely monitors their progress and establishes links with instructors.

The tutoring component has provided extraordinary tutoring and has developed into an excellent peer counseling and advising program. Although most of the tutors are paid, many tutor as an expression of their commitment to ensuring that minority students excel in science. It appears that the success of minority tutors is not grounded solely on the quality of tutoring, but rather in the fact that minority tutors become role models and, by their very presence, are able to reassure the underclass students that minority students can make it.

Pre-Sophomore Program

A student’s sophomore year is crucial, because it prepares the student for entry into the various departments as majors. Consequently, it was during the sophomore year that most minority students dropped out of science tracks. The Pre-Sophomore Program was designed in 1981 so that students of the tri-colleges who experienced difficulties during their first year would have a chance to overcome some of their weaknesses and to acquire the skills necessary to survive courses such as organic chemistry, molecular and cell biology, and physics in the next year. Of the three Haverford students participating in the program, two are doing exceptionally well and have developed good relations with members of the Chemistry and Biology Departments. Their participation in courses is better than or equal to their peers. The third is experiencing difficulty.

Saturday Program for High School Students

The ten year old “Saturday Program” prepares minority students from some of the worst high schools in Philadelphia for college admission. Minority students at Haverford initiated and funded the program, teaching a wide range of courses including Afro-American history, Afro-American literature, mathematics, and courses related to women. The college will now supplement these with mini-courses taught by Haverford faculty members, assisted by minority student volunteers. Some of the courses to be offered are problem solving in physics, a review of genetics, and computer programming. The program will be expanded beyond High School juniors and seniors to include sophomore and first year students as well as students from more diverse schools. The college will then be able to reach more students before they are turned off to science by the often inadequate teaching and the other multifarious “turn-offs” of the Philadelphia school system. Haverford’s minority students will be positive role models for the high school students, most of whom know few people who are studying science or who have careers in science. Hopefully, the program will be a stimulus for those who had not considered careers in science or medicine.

Responding to the Needs of the Community

The black and Latino communities are underrepresented in science, medicine, engineering, and the many careers which require a background in science. To merely increase their representation in these areas does not in any way address the long-term problems and needs of these communities, nor does a numerical increase of minorities in these areas guarantee that minority scientists will respond to the needs of their own communities. A meaningful science education for minority students should include a rigorous academic component that will facilitate the increased participation of minorities in all areas of science, medicine and engineering. So that young minority scientists will be able to respond to their communities, colleges must develop rigorous and innovative social and academic components that will broaden their moral, spiritual, philosophical and political dimensions. If society is to change, colleges must train men and women who are committed to saving the world, rather than destroying it in the race for power, fame, and fortune.