The Importance of Being Diverse

I hate stereotypes, but they are a part of our culture.  For example, when people hear that I am from Nebraska they assume I was not educated in a diverse environment.  Fortunately for me, I won a lottery and was part of a magnet program.  The categories in the graph labeled wash. and harr. were my neighborhood schools.  Instead of those schools attended by my sisters, I attended Franklin Learning Center and Martin Luther King Science Center for first-second and fifth-eighth grade, respectively.  From the graphic you can see that my younger years were spent in a diverse environment, at least one that contained a majority of African-American students.  My high school, Omaha North, was about evenly split between African-American students and Caucasians, which is why we called our dance team "salt 'n' pepa."

Attending University of Nebraska at Kearney was a culture shock for me, coming from an urban environment (Omaha) to a rural one. Thanks to Dr. Jerry Fox, retired Director of International Education, our campus had a large percentage of international students.  Dr. Fox was our guest speaker for the 39th annual Southern California Alumni Luncheon (2014) which was a great event.  I made it a point to seek out and cultivate relationships with our international students and had the experience of studying in Bonn, Germany for a month one summer.  This experience gave me a sense of what international students experience here including homesickness and the yearning to hear one's own native language again.

My graduate school experience, starting at Arizona State University, started a journey further West and into a more diverse territory in terms of Hispanic and Latino students.  Not until I started teaching at Estrella Mountain Community College did I experience learning in a truly Hispanic-serving institution (at least a 25% Hispanic undergraduate full-time-equivalent student enrollment).  EMCC had a fantastic NASA Center for Success in Math & Science where I spent time tutoring students who were willing to work hard to achieve a firm understanding on the content in their STEM courses.

University of California, Riverside has claimed in the past that it is "the most diverse in the University of California system" but a recent ranking by US News and World Reports has UCLA and UCR tied for the 5th most diverse universities in the USA with a rank of 0.70 out of 1.0.  Other schools in the UC system are not far behind at 0.68 (Davis, Santa Cruz), 0.67 (Berkeley, Santa Barbara), 0.66 (Irvine), and 0.64 (San Diego).  The other UC schools not mentioned in the report include San Francisco and Merced.  This was my first immersion in a predominantly Asian and Pacific Islander culture.  I learned about the Society for Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) as a support network for increasing diversity in STEM.

After finishing my Ph.D. I taught at the the W. M. Keck Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges.  Scripps College in Claremont, CA has a diversity score of 0.54 (#18 out of 215 ranked liberal arts colleges).  I didn't represent this two year period in my life on the graph because I am focused now only on public institutions.

By attending the ACS 44th Western Regional Meeting after moving to California State University, Northridge, I learned about National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).  It's great that there are organizations out there for seeding and nurturing talent in underrepresented groups.  Teaching at CSUN for the past year has been an amazing experience.  Among CSU's, the most diverse are 0.75 (East Bay), 0.72 (Long Beach), 0.70 (Fullerton, Sacramento), and 0.68 (Fresno, Northridge).  Other schools in the CSU system are not far behind at 0.66 (Stanislaus), 0.65 (Dominguez Hills, Monterey Bay), 0.62 (San Bernardino), 0.59 (Los Angeles), and 0.51 (Chico).  In total there are 23 campuses in the CSU system.  Not mentioned in this post are CSU San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Humboldt, Maritime, Pomona, Sonoma, Bakersfield, San Marcos, and Channel Islands.

Diversity imparts an advantage to any population

The point of this post is to emphasize that inclusion of people or things that are different from each other affords the population as a whole an advantage in a changing world. Take for example UCR's citrus variety collection. This unique resource of 1800 living trees, of 900 different types of citrus (2 trees each variety).  This collection and others like it for different species can be used to study virus attack and identify which species may have innate resistance.  Maintaining a diverse collection allows the industry to have access to a wealth of genetic variation that can help trees be saved when an invasive insect arrives.  The figure shown here profiles some of the citrus contained within the diversity collection.  Our modern fruits are crosses between the ancestral citrus (citron, mandarin, kumquat, pummelo, and trifolate).

Fruits with a primarily citron genotype (#14, 19, 20 and 21) were compared with fruits of a predominant mandarin traits (#145, 171, 180, 195, 207 and 212) and those of mainly pumello character (#239, 282).  For fun a few mixed genotype fruits (#303 and #316) were also sampled which were pumello/mandarin and mandarin/citron hybrids.  We found the mandarin rind contained geraniol while the citron rind contained terpine-4-ol.  The citron rind had many metabolites in common with the pummelo but did not contain menthatriene, terpine-4-ol or carene.  These terpenes were recorded by GC-MS after extraction into DCM.  These metabolites impart qualities to the fruits including such tasting notes as “fragrantly aromatic” and “exquisite form and aroma.”  We even had the chance to work with the "Buddha's hand" which is more rind than juice and can be used to perfume rooms or prepare candied rind.  Diversity is defined as showing a great deal of variety; very different.  The array of tastes and smells found in the Citrus Diversity Collection is a microcosm of California's population.  We each contribute common and unique traits to make the whole state a more interesting place to work or study.

In my home garden, I support diversity in the plants I cultivate.  Some plants, such as basil and rosemary, serve to enrich others.  Tomatoes are said to be more flavorful if grown near herbs.  Other plants, such as radish, are planted as trap crops.  Trap crops attract harmful pests away from your more prized plants, such as Japanese Pumpkin.  Dill attracts tomato hornworm, and is a good companion for fennel.  Oregano attracts predators, thereby reducing aphid populations.  Parsley attracts helpful pollenators, including wasps, flies, and butterflies.  Sage attracts honeybees and repels parasites.  Seeds are collected and replanted to keep the whole enterprise going.  I reject the notion of a monoculture being more advantageous, it is certainly less sustainable.  I sow these plants in harmony which makes the garden overall more biodiverse and more successful.

In chemistry, we find incoming freshmen (out of high school) of all ethnicities are bright, talented, motivated, and interested.  But usually more than half are lost in the first semester.  They tend to move away from science, toward business or some other field.  It becomes important to track students' progress and cultivate mentoring relationships.  What has also worked is making introductory courses 5 days per week instead of 3 days per week with time for problem-solving during class.  This helps students succeed in "gatekeeper" courses and minimizes the leaky pipeline.  Other ideas for transitioning underrepresented minority students include:

• focus on learning instead of teaching
• set high expectations
• be positive, emphasize skill-building
• assess early and often, provide feedback
• refer students to support services (counseling, tutoring, advising) early
• nurture departmental clubs, create social integration
• keep students focused on the goals of the class
• be sensitive of first-generation college student culture
• discuss careers in chemistry

Please watch my Chemistry Champions video.  There are 3 more days until the contest ends.  I am grateful for this opportunity to focus on my passions.  I will leave you with a quote from former American Chemical Society president Joseph Francisco, “I am here to do research, first and foremost. I reserve the right to pick and choose the ways I take action to recruit and retain minority students.”

References

Francisco, Joseph. "Achieving Diversity in the Sciences for the University of the 21st Century." Part of A Series of Conversations about Increasing Diversity in STEM Fields. UCR October 8, 2008.

Linton, Marigold. "Systemic Collaborations to Promote Diversity" Part of A Series of Conversations about Increasing Diversity in STEM Fields. UCR November 6, 2008.

Scharberg, Maureen. "Strategies for successfully transitioning underrepresented minority students from two-year to  four-year colleges" http://www.wrm2013.org/files/WRMProgram.pdf October 4, 2013.