As Ball State continues to try to find its place in the national rankings of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, there is still no consistent definition of what STEM actually is.
The United States is ranked 17th and 25th in science and mathematics, according to the Department of Education. Nationwide, there is a push to increase STEM graduates to fill STEM jobs and to rectify the nation’s perceived dwindling competitive edge in academics, which trickles down to the universities.
As a result, Ball State, a liberal arts college with nationally-recognized teaching and business programs, is scrambling to increase its STEM graduation rates in an effort to compete for funding with schools like Indiana University and Purdue University, which are more STEM-oriented.
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education determines additional funding for Indiana universities through a performance-based funding formula, which takes different types of graduation rates and weighs them in terms of importance.
Under the proposed distribution of performance funding, the ICHE recommended Ball State receive 2.8 percent of the $66 million state performance fund in fiscal year 2014. At the same time, they recommended 30.7 percent to go to IU and 29.5 percent to Purdue for the same year.
Performance Funding Formula Weighting
The commission is currently working on funding distribution for next year.
Despite the money invested, the U.S. has no clear definition of what it is debating when it comes to STEM and increasing efforts in those fields.
President Barack Obama is asking for $170 million to be invested in STEM programs for the 2015 national budget, yet there is no universal, nationally-defined list of what STEM is and how to evaluate it. Rubrics are mostly left up to individual organizations and can differ based on their decided definitions of what falls under STEM.
For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics's definition includes health-related fields, but the Indiana Commission for Higher Education does not.
The decision process for this variation on an accepted list of STEM fields is unclear, said Bill Knight, assistant provost of institutional effectiveness.
“We have kind of heard that health care fields are not on it because Indiana University graduates so many people in health care that it would sort of dominate,” Knight said. “That’s just kind of something people have said, but it would really help us if nursing was on that because we graduate a lot of nursing.”
However, Marilyn Buck, associate provost and dean of university college, said the decision is a mix of trying to account for strengths of individual institutions.
“It’s a matter of how small you divide up the pie,” she said. “[Putting nursing on ICHE’s STEM program list] wouldn’t help us with the funding, even though that is something we consider high impact.”
When President Paul Ferguson came to Ball State, he mentioned STEM being an important part of the university's future.
“I think deciding where we’re going in the academic plan over the next couple of years, we have some very significant decisions to make regarding what we’re going to do with health sciences, where we’re going in graduate studies and research, STEM disciplines, and making sure that whatever we’re moving balances with the heart and soul of the university as well, which is art and humanities,” Ferguson said in an interview with The Daily News in August.
In the past, Ball State has never been a large STEM or research school, Knight said.
“It is a priority, but certainly, historically, we do not have anywhere near the activity in terms of majors, graduates, faculty, facilities as IU and Purdue that have historically been started in those areas,” he said. “I think 10 years from now, we will be a STEM-ish place, incrementally.”
For evaluating Ball State’s “STEMness”, ICHE’s definition is what matters because it factors into the university’s funding.
“What they consider STEM, or high-impact, has a substantial dollar value on the money we receive from the state,” Knight said. “So you can say the more money we get from these disciplines, the more we have to work with to build up further in those areas.”
One of the measures in the formula is the high-impact, or STEM, graduation rate. The commission does not call its list of STEM programs STEM; they call it high-impact because of the notion that those fields will have a high impact on the various levels of the economy and will be able to improve the general quality of the workforce.
The Indiana Department of Education said there are 123,000 jobs in high-impact, STEM, areas that will need to be filled by 2018. STEM employment across the U.S. has increased from 12.8 million in 2000 to 16.8 million in 2013, according to the U.S. News/Raytheon STEM index.
The concern over STEM derives from the pressure coming down in monetary form from the federal and state levels. ICHE’s formula for performance funding assigns a weight of 10 percent to high impact degrees, whereas the four-year graduation rate is assigned a 25 percent weight.
The university’s Strategic Plan 2017 lists having four-year graduation rate up to 50 percent, an increase from last year's 44 percent rate. The plan also includes increasing degree offering in STEM fields. But the number of degrees is not included in the funding formula.
The National Center for Educational Statistics reports Ball State graduated 218 in 2009 in areas designated as STEM. IU and Purdue graduated 549 and 1,857 respectively in that year. These numbers are determined by the NCES’s list of STEM degrees, not ICHE’s.
“For the institution of our type, we have a nice balance of STEM,” Buck said. “We don’t have the large numbers like Purdue will have because of their engineering program.”
Editor's note: This is part of a series on the state of STEM efforts at Ball State University.
Read More
Where does it go?: Ball State has a complex relationship with recycling.
By Antonia Liakas / 11 hours agoBall State has a complex relationship with recycling.
‘Freedom in letting go’
By Kate Farr / 11 hours agoMy time here made me realize I’m more than my academic career.
Ball State's May 3 Commencement still to be held outside, light rain predicted
By NewsLink Indiana Weather and Staff Reports / YesterdayBall State University's Spring 2025 commencement ceremony May 3 is not expected to be indoors, despite forecasted rain showers in the early morning.
