The Struggle to Belong and Thrive

Abstract

Talking about Leaving took many of us by storm when it was published in 1997. Unusual for its time, the study did not indulge in “victim blaming” and instead pointed us toward strategies that went beyond “fixing the students” as a way to diversify the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical) community. We were motivated to join the overall undergraduate STEM education reform movement by the publication of Talking about Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences. This study opened the eyes and minds of many who were wondering about the exodus of students from STEM fields, especially the leave-taking of women and students of color. The work was important for many reasons, not the least of which were the clues offered about how and where things were going awry and what might be done to get them back on track. But unlike the prevailing presumptions that the students who were leaving didn’t have “the right stuff” for STEM, the evidence that emerged pointed to a much more complex story that included complicity of poor teaching by faculty and, at least for me, neglect by institutions to declare the losses as unacceptable—to act and to provide needed support.