Inclusive Science Education Is Not Zero-Sum

Abstract

The ethos of science requires many curious and creative people. Over the course of Asai's academic career, he became convinced that making sure more people from different backgrounds could find success in research would be a more meaningful contribution to science than his own individual lab work in cell biology. He left academia in 2008 to direct the undergraduate science education programs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). As he told Science magazine the same year, scientific discovery needs the "very best and the brightest, no matter what they look like and where they come from." Early in his tenure at HHMI, he was what sociologist Marisela Martinez-Cola calls a "collector," believing that the problem of underrepresentation could be solved simply by cramming more students into a "pipeline" while disregarding the harm they cause when they treat students as an inert commodity. The "pipeline" approach has resulted in hundreds of programs primarily aimed at assimilating students into a science culture not of their making nor designed with them in mind. It has done little to address disparities.