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Tech Companies Want More Foreign STEM Workers
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 Comment (58)As U.S. firms struggle to find enough workers in STEM fields to fill job vacancies, many have turned to H-1B visas—a program that allows 65,000 highly talented foreign nationals per year to work in the United States for up to six years. While critics say that these immigrants are taking American jobs, some U.S. corporations are asking the Obama administration to raise the cap, which is usually hit early in the year.
"We need to accept the fact that we're global," says Donagh Herlihy, senior vice president and CIO of Avon Products, a cosmetics manufacturer that employs more than 42,000 workers, approximately 6,200 in the United States. "It's better to bring people in from overseas and to have them doing the work here and paying taxes to the U.S. rather than having them overseas and paying taxes somewhere else."
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Video Site Helps Students Make Big Decisions
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2011 CommentGrowing up, Vinay Bhargava always loved math, but he wasn't sure what career it would lead him to.
Bhargava eventually found out. He became an electrical engineer and worked at Google, but he hopes his latest project will help young people learn more about their career options.
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Florida Governor May Divert Taxes to STEM Majors
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2011 Comment (7)Florida Gov. Rick Scott has a message for any aspiring anthropologists in Florida: Look elsewhere.
The Republican governor told conservative radio show host Marc Bernier this week that the state is going to begin shifting funding away from certain liberal arts majors at state universities to favor STEM disciplines.
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STEM Heavily Featured in New 'No Child' Legislation
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2011 Comment (3)After months of prodding from President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it looks like Congress is finally getting around to reworking the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, more popularly known as No Child Left Behind, the much-maligned law that has governed K-12 education since it went into effect in early 2002.
For the past several months, Obama and Duncan have asked Congress to rework the law, which has been extended on a year-to-year basis since it expired in 2007. The administration has even granted waivers to states that exempt them from parts of the law. In March, Duncan told Congress that more than 80 percent of schools could miss testing benchmarks set by the law, and in June he called the law a "slow-motion train wreck."
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California Students Get Engineering Experience at Energy Giant
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2011 Comment (1)David Alvarez isn't sure where he wants to go to college—but when he decides, he'll already have one thing going for him: a summer internship at one of America's five largest corporations.
Last summer, the Richmond, Calif., senior worked at Chevron, measuring densities and viscosities of crude oils at the company's refinery in the city. A few years earlier, he couldn't tell the difference between different types of engineering.
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Lenovo, YouTube Launch Teen Space Experiment Contest
Tweet Share on Facebook October 12, 2011 CommentThink your classroom or garage experiment has what it takes to make it in space? YouTube and computer manufacturer Lenovo are challenging students ages 14-18 to prove it with the launch of the YouTube Space Lab contest.
A panel of scientists, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and top NASA officials will select two of the best-designed experiments to be conducted in space aboard the International Space Station.
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Davidson Institute Awards 18 STEM College Scholarships
Tweet Share on Facebook October 6, 2011 CommentThe Davidson Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing talent in America's strongest students, honored 18 high school students last night in Washington, D.C.
The institute awards college scholarships worth between $10,000 and $50,000 to students who complete high-level projects in science, math, technology, music, literature, philosophy, and an "out of the box" category. This year, Simone Porter won the $50,000 scholarship for her violin performances.
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Zuckerman: U.S. Heading Toward 'Worst Time' Without STEM Ed
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2011 Comment (14)U.S. News & World Report editor in chief Mortimer Zuckerman told Yahoo's Daily Ticker that the United States may be "heading for the worst time in our lifetimes" if the nation does not begin graduating more students who are competent in STEM subjects.
He said that much of the job crisis in the United States can be attributed to the lack of skilled workers. Many corporations are shipping jobs overseas because they cannot fill them with U.S. citizens.
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College Board Explores New AP Exams in STEM Subjects
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2011 Comment (1)The College Board is exploring the possibility of offering new advanced placement (AP) courses in STEM-related subjects, according to the nonprofit's president, former West Virginia Gov. Gaston Caperton.
At U.S. News's Making Science Cool event last Tuesday, he said the organization was "exploring the potential of more AP courses in engineering, energy, environment, and anatomy." Don't look for the new subjects anytime soon. Development of a new AP course can take up to six years as teachers and professors develop class curricula and the AP exam before smaller groups pilot the new course, according to Trevor Packer, senior vice president of AP and college readiness for the College Board.
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University of Maryland Wins Solar House Competition
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2011 CommentNineteen university teams from around the world turned West Potomac Park on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., into a futuristic neighborhood last week at the U.S. Department of Energy's fifth biennial Solar Decathlon competition.
The only guidelines? Design, raise money for, build, and live in a self-sufficient house that runs on solar energy. Houses were judged on 10 criteria, including affordability, market appeal, comfort level, architecture, and, of course, energy efficiency. The wide-open guidelines led to a wide variety of houses. Students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the California Institute of Technology built something they call CHIP—a hyper-insulated, roomless structure that looks more like a tennis bubble than a house.
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Advanced Placement math and science courses provide rigorous training for college, and these 250 schools excel in preparing students with technical skills.
U.S. News STEM Leadership Hall of Fame
Richard B. Alley
Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences Penn State
Mary L. Good
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Economic Development University of Arkansas-Little Rock
Freeman A. Hrabowski III
President University of Maryland--Baltimore County
Tom Luce
Chairman National Math + Science Initiative
Ray Mellado
Chairman & CEO Great Minds in STEM
