An initiative launched by a School of Education faculty member this fall has gained national attention for its work aimed at combating the shortage of Black men in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Black Males in Engineering (BME), a project led by School of Education faculty member Brian Burt, provides a robust online resource of research-backed methods for supporting Black boys and men in STEM from primary school through doctoral studies. The resources include a video series and an accompanying set of interactive handouts with guided questions for key audiences, including parents, K-12 teachers, and college advisors.
Burt says the BME project is meant to provide guidance on promising practices at home and in educational settings for all those seeking to help Black students thrive.
Since its launch in September, the project has been featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Forbes, and TEACH Magazine.
In the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education story, Burt pointed out that aspiring to a career in engineering can be daunting for Black males.
“We aim to provide a growing and well-informed community of support for these hardworking students,” he said.
He said “a new and holistic paradigm” is needed to help boost the number of Black males who pursue degrees and jobs in STEM.
“I think what we need are strategies that bridge the entire pathway, otherwise we’re focused on small pockets and not seeing it as an entire picture,” he said.
Burt also contributed two opinion pieces to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education that elaborated on his work on the project. The first explains the genesis of his research on Black males in STEM, a subject he began to be interested in during his own graduate career. The second opinion piece explains the BME project in more depth.
In the Forbes article, Burt explains that his research helped him understand the “layered nature” of the barriers to STEM careers for Black males.
“I assumed the problems started in graduate school,” he said. “But what I found was that barriers for Black males in STEM were systemic and dated back to pre-K-12 education.”
The TEACH Magazine article outlines some of the statistics related to Black males in STEM — according to 2022 statistics from the National Science Foundation, only 2% of STEM-field graduates were Black men — and lays out the goals of Burt’s effort.
Read the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education story here and the op-eds here and here.
Read the Forbes article here.
Read the TEACH Magazine article here.
More information about Black Males in Engineering is available here.