As
with any new initiative, it's important to monitor progress
to know if it has been successful or not. The TWIST Steering
Committee has proposed several metrics that it will collect
data on in the areas of attraction, retention, and support of
women. People across the Five College Community are encouraged
to provide this web site with additional reports that will support
the TWIST vision.
As
data is collected and reports are written, we will make them
available on this site.
The
following reports are available on this site:
University
of Massachusetts, Amherst
TWIST Research Committee
Report #1
Executive
Summary. We have analyzed the retention of women and men
in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors here
at UMass, and at comparable institutions across the nation,
to determine if women are leaving STEM majors at disproportionately
large rates. In general, we have found that the retention and
graduation rates of women in STEM majors are superior to those
of men. Despite these larger retention and graduation rates
for women, more men graduate from most STEM majors. We suggest
that new academic policies for approaching gender equity should
focus on improving experiences of middle school girls in science
and math classes.
View
the report. (PDF- if you do not have Adobe®
Acrobat® Reader® , download
it now for free.)
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