Transcript of interview with Freeman Hrabowski, PhD, MA, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County
Interview conducted by Natalie McGill, reporter for The Nation’s Health newspaper.
Listen to this interview as a recording on our podcast page or read the Q&A in our October 2015 issue.
Why is it important for under represented students to pursue STEM careers and what barriers stand in the way?
There are several reasons that come to mind. Number one, many of the jobs available today and in the future require backgrounds in STEM areas and much of our economy depends on the STEM infrastructure in our country. At the same time, an increasing proportion of the American population consists of people from minority groups. And unfortunately right now, too few minorities are entering those careers and therefore we are putting the future of our economy and our prosperity at risk.
The APHA Annual Meeting theme is "Health in All Policies." How does this tie into your goal of attracting more underrepresented students into STEM studies and professions?
Right. I am delighted to have the theme as one to talk about because we need to be thinking about health disparities in our country and this combination of the growing minority populations. And so as we think about health policies, we need to be thinking about ways of encouraging universities, school systems, public and private agencies to develop incentives and strategies for attracting more people from these diverse populations into these careers as we work to eliminate the health disparities in our country.
After working with young adults for so many decades, what have you learned about their participation in STEM careers and what can be done to encourage their success?
First of all, it's very important that we have greater exposure for young people, for children, in thinking about the possibilities of careers whether in nursing or in medicine or in public health broadly. The fact is that too few families, American families, really know what opportunities are available, know enough about those opportunities. And they rarely know what course work will relate most effectively to the opportunities. For example, I can hear students saying they want to be doctors or nurses and yet in next sentence they can say “But I don't like science.” So helping these students understand the importance of learning not only more about science, about chemistry, biology, mathematics, but also about critical thinking skills and about how critical thinking skills, reading skills, the ability to analyze connected to strength in science, can lead to many more opportunities in science-related disciplines, which can also lead to many more health career possibilities.
When it comes to achieving health equity and equitable opportunities for minorities seeking science careers, what qualities do you think make a good leader?
I think it's very important for leaders to believe that it's possible for children of all types, for young people of all types, to succeed in school, to succeed in science. It's very important that leaders understand the particular academic requirements of majors, whether it's in pre-med or nursing or in medical technology or in broad public health areas. It's also important for leaders to have the kind of optimism coupled with the ability to set high standards that can lead to more students succeeding. High standards will refer not only to the rigor of the work, but also high standards with regard to supporting both students and faculty and staff in helping students to succeed.
Your book, “Beating the Odds,” features stories from parents about the methods they used to keep their sons focused on academic success in the face of criminal activity, peer pressure, and racism. How can such strategies be used to improve the lives of minority Americans?
I would say that book on Beating the Odds or my book on overcoming the odds involving raising successful young girls and young women, and the new book on STEM achievement and empowering youth all have the same message. And it is about setting high expectations, teaching them how to work in groups to build community among students, the importance of reading skills, analytical skills, helping students of different races understand the context, the logic context, understanding more about poverty itself, quite frankly about prejudice, and most important, helping to develop a sense of self in each student. Whether we're talking about what parents do, what teachers do, what leaders in general do to help young people succeed, nothing will be more important than helping each student develop a sense of self so that the student comes to understand not to allow anyone else to define who he or she is.
How have your experiences in civil rights movement shaped your views on equitable access to education, health, and other factors? And what still needs to be done to achieve that access?
When I first heard Dr. King say that children could participate in the civil rights movement and could march and make a statement about their belief in a better world, it was the first time I understood that tomorrow could be different from today. What that movement did for me, what participating in the civil rights movement did for me was to teach me that we can help young people, and people not so young, create a vision for themselves and our country that will focus on equality for people in general. And we can help people develop a strategy necessary to move towards in a very affirmative way reaching the goals. And most important, it is the kind of resilience that says one never gives up, that you constantly push towards the goal.
I didn't know if there was anything else that you would wanted to add or wanted listeners to hear or take to heart.
The one point I would make is that I think too few Americans understand how small or how low the percentages are when looking at the level of participation of people of color in different health professions in general. I was recently looking at, for example, in dentistry that 40 years ago we had gotten up to 2.5 percent of the dentists being black. Today, it's down to one half of 1 percent. If you go to the National Institutes of Health and you ask what percent of the scientists there are black, that percentage is under 1 percent. And a very small percentage of them will be Hispanic. And so there are very few people of color right now participating in the work that we're talking about in these different health professions, and too few who are experts in public health who can talk about the critical issues.
So I think to the extent that we can highlight the need for many more and focus on the specific strategies and best practices that make a difference, we can increase the numbers and we can change the culture in America.