Leath: STEM enrollment still has room to grow

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The Business Record recently interviewed Iowa State University President Steven Leath about his achievements and challenges in his first five years on the job.


Here’s what he had to say about the status of ISU’s STEM efforts and the need for more women in engineering.

What is the status of your STEM efforts?
The demand for (science, technology, engineering and math) employees is huge. Most kids get jobs, and they get good-paying jobs. If you look at what we have done as far as enrollment in STEM, in the last 10 years, women in STEM is up about 35 percent. If you look at minority enrollment, it’s up too. If you look at it in raw numbers, it’s up a lot — almost threefold. But women and minorities are nowhere near where we want them. Growing that STEM enrollment is a huge push for us. Those numbers have gone up, but they are not where they want to be. Every college at ISU is equal or majority women, except engineering. It is strongly male. I think less than 30 percent of engineering enrollment is female. We need to work hard to increase that.


The full Insider interview with Leath is available at BusinessRecord.com.