Journal Publication

A periodical publication that focuses on a specific discipline. The journal contains a number of peer-reviewed papers that are considered vetted and creditable. A journal publication is generally only published in an open or closed access journal and will not be included in conference proceedings books or online proceedings repositories. 

Evaluating a Science Diversity Program at UC Berkeley: More Questions Than Answers

John Matsui
Roger Liu
Caroline M. Kane
2003

For the past three decades, much attention has been focused on developing diversity programs designed to improve the academic success of underrepresented minorities, primarily in mathematics, science, and engineering. However, ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in science majors and careers. Over the last 10 years, the Biology Scholars Program (BSP), a diversity program at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, has worked to increase the participation and success of students majoring in the biological sciences. A quantitative comparison of students in and out of the program...

A Longitudinal Study of the Biology Scholars Program: Maintaining Student Integration and Intention to Persist in Science Career Pathways

Mica Estrada
Andrew Eppig
Lilibeth Flores
John Matsui
2019

The Biology Scholars Program (BSP) for undergraduate students has repeatedly demonstrated the retention and persistence of BSP scholars is on par with rates of “lower risk” scholars (Matsui et al., 2003). But an outstanding question regarding this consistent effect remains: Why do these “higher risk” scholars persist and consistently beat the odds? To address this question, the “Gift it Forward” study began in 2014 to collect data from 68 BSP scholars across four time points, to assess the growth, decline or maintenance of student integration into the scientific community and test...

THE "TURNING POINT" FOR MINORITY PRE-MEDS: The Effect of Early Undergraduate Experience in the Sciences on Aspirations to Enter Medical School of Minority Students at UC Berkeley and Stanford University

Donald A. Barr
John Matsui
2008

The University of California faces the challenge of increasing the diversity of students graduating from its medical schools while also adhering to mandated restrictions on the use of race or ethnicity in the admissions process. Students from diverse backgrounds who gain admission as undergraduates to UC Berkeley and express an early interest in a medical career are an important potential source of medical students for the UC system. However previous data suggest that many of these undergraduate students lose interest in a medical career and never apply to medical school. We report on...

Chemistry courses as the turning point for premedical students

Donald A. Barr
John Matsui
Stanley F. Wanat
Maria Elena Gonzalez
2009

Previous research has documented that negative experiences in chemistry courses are a major factor that discourages many students from continuing in premedical studies. This adverse impact affects women and students from under-represented minority (URM) groups disproportionately. To determine if chemistry courses have a similar effect at a large public university, we surveyed 1,036 students from three entering cohorts at the University of California, Berkeley. We surveyed students at the beginning of their first year at the university and again at the end of their second year. All subjects...

Improving Underrepresented Minority Student Persistence in STEM

Mica Estrada
Myra Burnett
Andrew G. Campbell
Patricia B. Campbell
Wilfred F. Denetclaw
Carlos G. Gutiérrez
Sylvia Hurtado
Gilbert H. John
John Matsui
Richard McGee
Camellia Moses Okpodu
T. Joan Robinson
Michael F. Summers
Maggie Werner-Washburne
MariaElena Zavala
2016

Members of the Joint Working Group on Improving Underrepresented Minorities (URMs) Persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)—convened by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute—review current data and propose deliberation about why the academic “pathways” leak more for URM than white or Asian STEM students. They suggest expanding to include a stronger focus on the institutional barriers that need to be removed and the types of interventions that “lift” students’ interests, commitment, and ability to persist in...

Minority Retention Rates in Science Are Sore Spot for Most Universities

Robert Koenig
2009

Although minority students entering U.S. colleges are just as interested as their white peers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), they are only two-thirds as likely as whites to earn bachelor's degrees in those fields within 6 years. The Meyerhoff program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has tried to address the high attrition rates among minority students (predominantly African-Americans and Hispanics) who declare an interest in STEM. The 16-year-old Biology Scholars Program at the University of California, Berkeley, has also succeeded in...

The Influence of Affirming Kindness and Community on Broadening Participation in STEM Career Pathways

Mica Estrada
Alegra Eroy-Reveles
John Matsui
2018

The United States’ inability to achieve equitable workforce development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career pathways is well- recognized and has been attributed to the poor retention of a diverse stream of students in academia. Social science theory and research provide evidence that social contextual variables—specifically kindness cues affirming social inclusion— influence chronic underrepresentation of some groups within STEM career pathways. Review of the literature suggests that the current STEM academic context does not consistently provide cues that...

“Outsiders at the Table”—Diversity Lessons from the Biology Scholars Program at the University of California, Berkeley

John T. Matsui
2018

In 2017, at two campus-wide events to discuss diversity efforts in science, two senior scientists, both of whom were white men from separate institutions, declared, “We know what to do to fix underrepresentation in STEM, all we need is to do it.” I found what they said to be profoundly ironic. Their independent, nearly identical declarations captured the essence of why I think that, after 40 years of efforts to diversify science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), underrepresentation persists. Their words reminded me of when the special diversity edition of the journal...