Coalition of the Concerned about the Vitality of the US S&E Workforce
A thought piece by Spence M. (Sam) Armstrong; NASA HQ

This memo covers the minutes of the luncheon held on Jan. 29 at the GUIRR. Although I have authored this memo, I have cleared it with my co-collaborators—Dan Hastings of MIT and Dan Sullivan of Qualcomm.

Note the name that I am suggesting in the address for our group. It is lengthy but descriptive. We haven’t fallen in love with the name yet so there is time for the members to come up on the net and suggest, endorse or acquiesce.

By all accounts, the luncheon was productive beyond most of our expectations. From the minutes you can discern there was agreement that something should be done and a good start was the sharing of "what works". A real breakthrough came when Dan Sullivan suggested, seconded by Bob Spitzer, that we narrow our focus to decrease the existing dropout rate of undergraduate science and engineering majors. If this can be done, this is the quickest way to increase the talent pool for the nation.

I asked that each participant provide me with two two-page summaries of "what works" programs that they were administrating. Further, that one of these should address the narrowed focus described above. I also asked that the programs be described along the format of the CAHSEE program that I distributed to the attendees. It was agreed to by those in attendance and I committed to personally contacting those invitees who were not in attendance. I am now asking that I receive those two-pagers via email no later than February 22 with copies to Dan Hastings and Dan Sullivan and an info copy to Nina.

I will chat with the two Dan’s and probably schedule a conference call through GUIRR for a discussion of what I should present at the March 13 GUIRR meeting in the 20 minutes that I have been allotted on the agenda.

Do any of you have any pertinent data on the aforementioned dropout rates. My only source covers only women and minorities.

By the way, in stumbling around on the web I came across Project Kaleidoscope (www.pkal.org) which has been working for some years with similar concerns as our newly formed coalition. It looks like we might join forces in some way. I have contacted the Executive Director here in DC and we will meet in a couple of weeks when her schedule permits. I’ll keep you posted.