Homestead Borough, an underpopulated and chronically underserved community located near the city of Pittsburgh, has had its share of hard times. And for many students at Propel Andrew Street High School, whose challenges span the spectrum from poor attendance to failing grades, the road to academic success often feels like a dead end. In response, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh created the Digital Connectors/Project Ready STEAM (DC/PR STEAM) program.

The initiative, which introduces students to careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), has since become a source of hope and progress for many of them, including “Shea Matthews.” Shea was at risk of failing a science class and was strongly encouraged to attend our program. Reluctant to participate at first, her interest was soon piqued when she realized she could earn extra credit that would help her improve her grades in her current classes. Beyond school credit, obligation soon transformed into genuine interest. STEAM Program Manager Jane Lee described Shea’s joy “when she could do experiments that caused things to react and blow up," explaining that, “the statement became our running joke, and I would tell her, 'we are not blowing up anything today, but we are going to have fun!'" Although Shea worked at an after school job, she would often rearrange her schedule to attend DC/PR STEAM. With the extra credit she earned, Shea not only passed her science class, but raised her final average by one letter grade.

The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh also hosts two outside-of-school programs to expose African-American students to science, technology, engineering and math endeavors, working to increase their interest in STEAM. These programs broaden previously limited horizons for this underrepresented and disadvantaged population, by incorporating goal-setting behaviors that aim to improve academic outcomes, and ultimately, lead to satisfying and sustainable employment.

Now in her junior year, Shea has taken a newfound interest in the field of science and is open to learning more about potential STEAM careers. Programs like DC/PR STEAM empower students to take personal responsibility for their academic achievement, significantly increasing their chances of professional success in the future. For too many students like Shea, the road to academic success can often be as difficult as the neighborhoods where they reside. DC/PR STEAM is evidence that where there is a will, and appropriate social and academic support services, the road to success is only steps away.

We all know the problems all too well for this nation—and especially for Black America. 

We are all subject to the globalization that has advanced at a very rapid pace over the past two decades.  This has occurred primarily due to technological advancement, which has driven immense global economic growth.  In an equal world, this would not be a problem; it would actually be fantastic news.  In fact, it is fantastic news for those individuals and nations who are well-positioned to take advantage of that economic prosperity.

To take full advantage of this economic boom, both nations and individuals must be equipped with the knowledge, education, skills, experience and creativity to leverage the opportunities that exist today and in the future.  Therein lies the problem for many U.S. citizens—especially Black Americans.

From an educational standpoint, it is well-documented that the U.S. is stuck in a state of educational stagnation and has been for quite some time.  According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures students' reading, mathematics and science literacy every three years from approximately 70 countries, American students have consistently placed squarely in the middle of the pack since 2003. The most recent assessment was administered in 2015.

The U.S. average scores measure the performance of all America’s students.  The situation is much bleaker when looking at how African-American students stack up.  According to this assessment, nearly 29% of American students did not reach the baseline for math proficiency, whereas only 10% of students in Canada, Singapore and Korea did not reach the proficient level.  Comparatively, only 12% of U.S. Black students reached or exceeded the proficient level. U.S. reading performance scores were slightly higher, and science scores averaged about the same as math.  

Why are these test scores important in economic terms?  These indicators are important because while American students have continued to score at the same levels for more than a decade, many developing nations have made significant advancements in educating their human capital.  Education is more important than ever for individual success, collective prosperity and innovation in the midst of knowledge-based economic globalization.  Global leadership and innovation are sustained when our youth are equipped with the knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence and make sense of information.  These are skills students learn by studying subjects collectively known as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).  For Black America, this is especially troubling because poor educational performance will increase social inequality and restrict business and employment opportunities. 

So, what is the solution?  While quality STEM education is the foundation for Black America and the entire nation to lead the world in economic opportunities for all of its citizenry and demonstrate innovative leadership, it is but one significant component of the answer.  Active, engaged leadership is the holistic answer.  Activist leadership is defined when all leaders (at all levels) in STEM fields accept responsibility and take active roles to help create transformative economic mobility opportunities for Black students and professionals.  Those leaders fully leverage their resources and power to influence policy makers, make a positive impact on the public education system, support non-profit organizations, create public/private partnerships and spend time mentoring others for empowerment outcomes.  These are not just the right things to do; they are competitive imperatives.

Additionally, and even more importantly, the solution lies in instilling strong values and character building traits in our youth.  It is foundational and essential for successful life and job skill development.  Collaboration with faith communities and organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and Character Plus will help instill those values and traits that will differentiate and enable our Black youth to reach their fullest potential.  Without this, deterioration in our community will continue to persist.

World Wide Technology, Inc. and the Steward Family Foundation is actively engaged in providing and investing in strong leadership through organizations like the Global Leadership Forum (GLF), which is a convener and force multiplier of some of the best STEM-focused, not-for-profit organizations that are transforming lives in Black America and other diverse communities every day. As we continue to forge ahead in this digital revolution, opportunity and access will be important to successfully support urban communities across the country.  As we partner with organizations like the National Urban League, which stand at the forefront of this mission to drive economic empowerment, we will find new and innovative ways to reinforce our commitment to provide the leadership and resources necessary to protect the progress of the mission.

The Urban League of Nebraska (ULN) administers programs in education and youth development, offering supplemental and enrichment opportunities for high school students.  One of our signature programs is the Whitney M. Young Jr. Leadership Academy, a college preparatory program. Under the leadership of Nicole Mitchell, the program’s coordinator, she operates a Girls Summer STEAM Academy in collaboration with the Omaha Public Schools District. 

The ULN WMY Girls Summer STEAM Academy is a six-week program offered free-of-charge to as many as 20 young women of color from grades 9-12. Participants are exposed to careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, agriculture and mathematics through hands-on work, on-site tours of local corporations and institutions, and talks with professional women who are leaders in their respective fields. 

Although women make up 50% of the total workforce, less than 30% are employed in STEAM fields. A report published by the National Science Foundation found that 42% of graduate students in science and technology were women.  But of those women, only 14% were Black, Hispanic or Native American.  Women are underrepresented in the fields of science and technology, but women of color are noticeably absent. 

We use our work to teach our students that there are no “men-only” jobs in science and technology. The ULN WMY Girls Summer STEAM Academy prepares students for post-secondary education, emphasizing opportunities in STEAM-related careers and working towards shattering race and gender assumptions by increasing the representation of women of color in STEAM-related careers.

Hosted at Creighton University, the academy offers our students early exposure to a college campus setting.  While they follow a formal curriculum that includes lectures, the real learning happens during the field trips.  Students visit an architecture and engineering firm, a power plant, a hospital and medical school, a television studio, and a Fortune 500 railroad company.

Students attend talks with guest speakers who discuss the challenges and obstacles they encountered as women in careers that have traditionally been male dominated.  Our students explore tactics and strategies to overcome those barriers as they learn the stories of these pioneering women who have achieved success in their chosen professions. 

The Urban League of Nebraska developed the Girls Summer STEAM Academy to pique the interest of young women of color in the fields of science and technology and to help power the diversity and inclusion revolution of the future.  We believe the young ladies who take STEAM classes today will become the women who dispel long-held beliefs about the women of color and their place in our shared digital reality.

Throughout the history of our nation’s civil rights movement, images played an important role in conveying the struggle for equality. In this era of widespread media access, near universal adoption of social media platforms and the rapid dissemintation of content, images hold an even greater importance in conveying messages—both good and bad.

For communities of color, especially in our urban areas, we have often been denied the ability to portray ourselves in mainstream media in a positive way.  Recently, a new trend has emerged that has seen an increase in our ability to see ourselves in our fullest depth, breadth and potential.  Shows created by visionaries such as Shonda Rhimes demonstrate our wide-ranging experiences and abilities in ways we only dreamed about just a few years ago.  This on-screen success has led to the rapid development of programming that builds on this work and shines an overdue light on the diversity of our experiences.  For example, Yara Shahidi’s current work on Black-ish and Grown-ish not only provides a new discussion point on our media landscape, but it is a crucial media image for many millennials.

But even with all this success, we must also acknowledge that the foundation of self-esteem and the internalizing of beliefs of what we can achieve starts in childhood.  Unfortunately, the images we have traditionally celebrated in mainstream children’s programming have lacked diversity.  But there is one clear example in recent history that demonstrates the true power of positive images in children’s media and is likely to have a historic ripple effect on our healthcare system.

On March 23, 2012, Disney premiered the children’s television show Doc McStuffins on its Disney Junior network.  I sat down with my youngest daughter that day to watch the show and was truly amazed by the powerful images I saw on the screen.  Doc McStuffins was the first children’s television show in the history of American television to feature an African-American girl as the lead character.  In addition to this historic, groundbreaking fact, Disney and the show’s creator, Chris Nee, created a show where a young girl of color dreamed of following in her mother’s footsteps to become a physician.  Doc McStuffins quickly became an international success and children—of all colors—eagerly asked their parents for Doc McStuffins playsets and toys. 

The profound and immediate effect of the broadcast of Doc McStuffins on our nation’s healthcare system may have been lost on many viewers and fans. For generations, African Americans have been underrepresented in our nation’s physician workforce.  Although African Americans are approximately 12% of the population, we make up less than 4% of the physician workforce.  This lack of diversity has, among other issues, made it difficult for our society to properly address ongoing health disparities that African Americans face. 

But with the success of Doc McStuffins came an immediate effect. Young children around America were redefining what a doctor in our society looks like.  African-American women physicians around the nation started to share on social media how, when they entered an exam room to see a patient, children in the room would light up with excitement and gleefully express to their parents, “‘Look, mom! It’s Doc McStuffins!’”

Children of color were finally being exposed to an image of themselves they had never been allowed to imagine at such an early age.  They saw a vibrant young girl and her physician mother in roles not seen since the Huxtables on The Cosby Show.  In addition, they saw a father in a non-traditional role working from home.  Disney and Chris Nee provided us with an opportunity to engage our children at an early age and provide them with positive reinforcement about their abilities and the probablity to succeed beyond the traditional stereotypes of sports and entertainment.

Recently, Artemis Medical Society released the Breaking Down Barriers for Women Physicians of Color report with the Greenlining Institute of Oakland, California.  This national research initiative catalogued the barriers and challenges women of color experience on their journeys to become physicians.  For the final report, one physician interviewee explained, “The challenge with being a little brown girl is that when you tell people it’s your aspiration to be a doctor, they don’t believe you can do it. They try to push you into nursing or something else where they have seen someone like you.” The power of Doc McStuffins is that it provides a clear and powerful response to this negative narrative. 

We now have a generation of children who believe they can be physicians or pursue STEM careers.  In fact, many of America’s children now believe that an African-American woman is the standard for a what a physician looks like.  This is important because this type of positive media image creates an environment to engage students early on and provide them with the crucial math and science foundation they will need to complete STEM/STEAM degrees.

The challenge moving forward will be how we harness the power of these growing positive media images.  How do we capture interests in STEM/STEAM career paths that popular culture media like Doc McStuffins and Black Panther have instilled in our children? 

Thanks to the historic recent changes in the creation and distribution of positive media images for communities of color, we are now in a position to bring positive and historic changes to our urban centers and our nation’s workforce.  To maintain this newfound success, we must be prepared to do more than just cheer this evolution of positive media images if we expect to create a generational wave of students of color who earn STEM/STEAM degrees.  The challenge has been set. The next step depends on how we respond to determine and maintain our success.

A few years ago, I attended a national conference focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) that singlehandedly transformed the focus of our affiliate.  One of the consistent themes of the conference was the dearth of Black and brown students and adults in the sector.  After the first hour, I also noted the dearth of people of color attending the event.  By the end of the conference, I felt compelled to weave STEAM into our existing programs by seeking relevant partnerships and creating programs to address this crisis head on. 

By 2020, more than one million new STEAM jobs are expected to be added to the U.S. workforce with a 21% rise in technology positions.  More women and people of color are also expected to enter the workforce. However, these populations are severely underrepresented in STEAM fields. Only half as many Black and Hispanic workers have STEAM jobs relative to their overall workforce representation compared to 75% of white men. Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S., they fill less than 25% of STEAM jobs. Engaging more girls and people of color in STEAM education and career pipelining is a business imperative.

STEAM has already revolutionized how we live, from smart technologies in our smart homes to every day weather updates on our smart phones. STEAM is not a mysterious field better left to academics and engineers.  There are problems all around us that can be solved with STEAM. The New York Urban League (NYUL) is proud of actively training our youth to become problem solvers and create some of those solutions.

The goals of the NYUL STEAM Initiative are: to ensure youth from low-income families have access to quality educational services that lead to academic achievement, to develop students who are competitive college applicants, and to instill career and entrepreneurial aspirations that prepare them for STEAM related industries.

Our work started with a STEAM summer camp that included a parent and youth component. Later we published “A Parents’ Guide to STEM” in partnership with US News & World Reports.  We changed the focus of our career exploration days—known as our Young Men and Young Women’s Empowerment Days—to focus on how corporations create STEAM solutions.  Most recently, we created The Harlem Alliance, a collaborative to build a state-of-the-art CodeNEXT lab powered by Google.  We have trained young people to code, provided internships with tech companies, and opened career pathways in STEAM industries.

The path to STEAM success is broad and can be reached via many roads. It requires conquering fears and strengthening weak foundations in math and science.  Parents and caregivers must encourage young people to push past stereotypes, take challenging coursework, and venture beyond the familiar.  Young people want to find a cure for cancer, provide clean water and rid the world of AIDS.  Too often cast as the problem, they want to create the solutions.  STEAM provides the tools that can unlock the creativity of the next generation.

Nearly every national data report indicates that women and students of color remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Knoxville Area Urban League believes changing that trajectory is a shared responsibility. In that vein, we partnered with Youth Outreach in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (Yo-STEM), a program dedicated to exposing students from underserved communities to the growing world of STEM.

Many significant advances and discoveries in technological research made by women have positively impacted the STEM field, yet the ratio of women to men in STEM careers is largely disproportionate, with only a quarter of STEM workforce contributions attributed to women. Outreach programs focused on exposing young girls to STEM careers can help bridge the gender gap, allowing more women to make valuable contributions to their field of study. Middle school is commonly identified as a turning point where interest in STEM changes. Reaching students at this age is critical as their opinions towards STEM careers can be altered through positive and engaging experiences. Our partnership with Vine Middle Magnet School is where that magic happens.

The Girls in STEM (G-STEM) program exposes middle school girls to professionals, projects, and ideas they normally would not have been able to access. Led by Knoxville Area Urban League Young Professional Candice Halbert, a scientific associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and other STEM professionals from ORNL, these scientists conduct various experiments at Vine Middle Magnet School to provide hands-on experiences for the students. Some of the projects include 3D design and printing, robotics, coding, and chemistry experiments. The goal is for students to have a fun experience exploring the vast range of what STEM has to offer.

G-STEM also has a mentorship component. Students meet and interact with mentors who look like them to dive a little further into the four STEM subject areas. Our mentors, professionals with years of experience in a variety of STEM fields, encourage a deeper interest in the field. They provide a better understanding of computer programming, engineering, and mathematics; and they show, by example, that diversity is essential in STEM.

During our second year of operation, we wanted to reach more students in other creative ways and created the Build-a-Drone (BaD) program. Facilitated by STEM professionals with expertise in drone technology, the program was established to serve middle school boys and girls by tapping into their everyday curiosity about drones and exposing them to the growing world of unmanned vehicle technology.

STEM education creates critical thinkers, increases science literacy, and enables the next generation of innovators. According to the U. S. Department of Commerce, STEM occupations have a projected growth of 17%, while non-STEM occupations have a projected growth of 9.8% by 2018. It is our goal to increase the number of women and people of color in STEM occupations and change the trajectory in Knoxville.

The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis' Head Start/Early Head Start (ULHS) program is a comprehensive early childhood education program that provides services to 672 children from birth to age five. A particular focus is placed on school-readiness, early childhood education, family and community engagement, and health and nutrition services.

By 2020, nearly two-thirds of all jobs will require post-secondary education or training grounded in critical thinking or problem-solving skills learned in math and science. To better prepare our students for future career success, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis recently renewed its partnership with the Monsanto Fund to support science education in its Head Start program. The Urban League Head Start Science to Educate Many programs broadens classroom and outdoor learning opportunities through hands-on, open-ended activities and zoological studies. Additionally, ULHS continues to expand and enhance classroom science centers and provide quality hands-on exploratory opportunities in science education.

Classroom science centers are now one of the largest areas in each classroom; previously they were the smallest or non-existent. Scientific and exploratory methods are now being used during instruction in literacy, math and social studies, and teachers are providing engaging, high-quality activities and experiences that make learning purposeful and sustainable. 

Our initiatives also involve our students’ parents. Parents have long supported off-site, science related field trips to places such as the Missouri Botanical Gardens and the Butterfly House, but this year we expanded parental engagement in the STEM program. Believing instructional techniques and child outcomes will be reinforced earlier if parents are more involved in classroom and center-based activities, learning has been extended beyond experimental projects families can participate in at their child's center to include science-related take-home activities.

All Urban League Head Start Centers take part in a variety of urban biodiversity initiatives. Currently, each of our sites house butterfly gardens as part of Milkweed for Monarchs: The St. Louis Butterfly Project, an initiative launched by the City of St. Louis to build nature-rich neighborhoods and rebuild habitats for monarchs and other wildlife.  Students who planted gardens this past spring and summer will be able to observe the life cycle of butterflies, discern different species of milkweed, and learn about the insects that thrive from milkweeds during the school year.

The results of ULHS' STEM program have been astounding. At the end of last year, 95% of our students met or exceeded program expectations in knowledge of the living and physical environment, and 87% met or exceeded age-level expectations in scientific-inquiry skill development.