Tonya Bolden - Changing the Equation

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During her 20012004 tenure in a leadership position at the National Science Foundation (NSF), white biologist Dr. Judith Ramaley took a shine to the acronym STEM.

Science.

Technology.

Engineering.

Mathematics.

The NSF, a federal agency that funds education and research in specified fields, had previously used SMET (Science, Math, Engineering, Technology). Dr. Ramaley championed the shift from SMET to STEM, she said, because science and math support the other two disciplines and because STEM sounds nicer than SMET. Too, SMET subtly implies that science and math came first or were better. The newer term suggests a meaningful connection among them.

With STEM, the NSF doesnt include physicians and some other medical professionals. Understandable. When the SMET, then STEM push began, the nation had no shortage of doctors, for example. This was not the case with other fields, such as engineering.

Pinning down STEM is a bit tricky. For example, the US Department of Labors Bureau of Labor Statistics considers nursing a STEM field, but the NSF does not. And while the NSF lists certain social sciences as STEM (psychology, for example), the Department of Commerce does not.

Hmm.

When it comes to history, many people take a broad view of STEM. I am one of them. Just as in an overview of technology I wouldnt start with the mainframe computer (and omit the wheel and the Gutenberg press), so Changing the Equation: 50+ US Black Women in STEM includes physicians, for example, such as the first woman you will meet in the book: Dr. Rebecca Crumpler. She earned her MD in 1864four years before black people in America had citizenship, six years before black men had the right to the national vote, and fifty-six years before Americas women had that right, too.

How can we not honor the pioneers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematicswomen who in their day were cutting-edge? Women who didnt have access to the sort of education that would allow them to enter some now NSF-approved STEM field? Women like Dr. Crumpler blazed a trail for others in this book whose contributions and/or personal stories also called to me, intrigued me, piqued my curiosity.

Women such as biochemist Marie Maynard Daly, computer scientist (and more!) Donna Auguste, industrial engineer Pamela McCauley, chemical engineer Paula T. Hammond, geologist and micropaleontologist Lisa D. White, cybersecurity pro Emma Garrison-Alexander, and aerospace engineer Aprille Joy Ericsson.

In these profiles (some short, some longish) and in quick mentions (in boldface), you will encounter women with an array of academic degrees, including two kinds of doctors: those with medical degrees (MDs) and those with doctorates, aka PhDsthe highest academic degree possible. Some degrees were earned at historically black colleges and universities such as Hampton, Howard, and Tuskegee, others at majority-white institutions such as Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and MIT.

In the pages of this book you just might find role models, inspirations. You might also rethink a field you once dismissed as something you would never do. Or be able to do. Maybe, too, youll discover a vocation you did not know existed and think, Hmm, maybe thats for me!

PhD, the abbreviation for the Latin philosophiae doctor, doctor of philosophy, is awarded in a range of fields, from English to Engineering. Philosophy here is used in the broadest sense of the Greek philosopha (), meaning love of wisdom. Doctor descends from the Latin docere: to teach. MD is the abbreviation for the Latin medicinae doctor: teacher of medicine.

POSSIBILITIES: Unidentified woman circa 1899. In the nineteenth century, careers in STEM were becoming a reality for black women.

PART 1
In the Vanguard

In early America the rap was that black people and women were not equipped for STEM.

Unfit.

Too weak.

Lacking the mental muscle.

Blah, blah, blah.

This balderdash persisted into the nineteenth century and beyond.

A black womans place, said society, was in the cotton or rice fields, in domestic service, or in taking care of her own home and family.

Defiant and determined, a number of black women pushed back against stereotype.

In the early days most black women with a STEM bent became medical doctors. These women were gold in their communities because many white physicians would not treat black people (or treated them badly). Black women were especially grateful for black medicine women because male MDsregardless of race or ethnicitycould be rather condescending toward female patients.

For STEM-minded black women, teaching was a wide-open fieldthat is, in schools for black people when segregation reigned by custom, then by law. Some black women became teachers because they were barred from such jobs as, say, researcher at a pharmaceutical company. For others, teaching was a first choicea prime way to fortify their communities, ready the next generation for success.