Post-Meeting Memo: BHEF Member Meeting (Summer 2013)

BHEF’s summer meetings engage policymakers most relevant to it initiatives and its policy agenda. The summer 2013 meeting focused on President Obama’s STEM undergraduate initiative and national cybersecurity policy, as well as how regional higher education and workforce projects supported by BHEF’s National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative can stimulate regional economic growth.

The meeting opened in afternoon of June 11 to a standing-room only national STEM summit which featured keynote remarks from the Honorable Ray Mabus, secretary of the Navy, regarding the Navy’s priorities for STEM undergraduate education. Other speakers included Tom Kalil, deputy director for policy, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president, UMBC; Presidential Medal of Science winner and UMCP faculty member S. James Gates; recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring and Yale University faculty member Jo Hansdelsman; and other national figures and thought leaders. These presentations were followed by panel discussions, interviews, and other sessions focusing on the steps participants are taking to respond to the president’s goal of producing one million additional STEM graduates by 2020.

On the second day, members and guests participated in policy discussions on national cybersecurity policy issues, particularly the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). In closed-door sessions, members held frank conversations with Richard Ledgett, Jr., director of the National Security Agency’s CSS Threat Operations Center, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and heads of leading industry associations concerned with cybersecurity, including Marion Blakey, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, about cyber threats and cyber workforce strategies. The meeting concluded with a learning session focused on successful regional innovation incubators, and explored how BHEF might leverage such hubs toward its higher education and workforce agenda.

Meeting Takeaways

The National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative creates a strong foundation for advancing BHEF’s policy agenda.
Through its National STEM Undergraduate Partnership, BHEF leads a broad coalition of business and higher education groups dedicated to addressing the shortfall in the STEM workforce by increasing completion in STEM undergraduate programs.
BHEF’s business and higher education leaders can play important leadership roles with Congress by advancing the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, helping evolve cyber policy and, in particular, ensuring the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act improves security and maintains privacy.
Regional higher education and workforce projects supported by BHEF’s Higher Education and Workforce Initiative can stimulate regional economic growth by providing the workforce needed for high-demand fields and serving as a foundation for innovation and commercialization networks.

Opening Program

Meeting the President’s STEM Call to Action: A Joint Implementation Response to PCAST’s Engage to Excel Report

The National Undergraduate STEM Partnership, of which BHEF is a founding member, hosted a national summit with over 300 attendees to catalyze STEM national stakeholders’ response to the PCAST report, Engage to Excel, and President Obama’s goal of producing one million STEM graduates by 2020. This program included a series of presentations, including keynote remarks by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus; Tom Kalil, deputy director, policy, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Susan Singer, director, division of undergraduate education, National Science Foundation; and Dr. Reggie Brothers, deputy assistant secretary of defense for research. Each presenter spoke eloquently and forcefully to the need for the nation to address the president’s goals to maintain the nation’s competitiveness through public-private partnerships such as those BHEF is developing.

In conjunction with the summit, BHEF also showcased the importance of cutting-edge policy tools to meet the STEM challenge by releasing the U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model.® BHEF executive committee member and Raytheon Chairman and CEO Bill Swanson officially launched the new tool, and BHEF CEO Brian Fitzgerald spoke about the model’s findings and insights on STEM undergraduate education and highlighting BHEF’s report on the model.

Commander Joseph Cohn, deputy director of research for STEM at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), moderated a discussion on transforming STEM undergraduate education with an expert panel, which included Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president, UMBC, and Jo Handelsman, who, in addition to her role as professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale, is co-chair of the PCAST STEM Undergraduate Education Working Group and National Medal of Science recipient.

The event also featured S. James Gates Jr., who in an enlightening interview with BHEF Vice Chair Roger Ferguson, president and CEO of TIAA-CREF, focused on identifying the pathways essential to meeting the one million STEM graduate goal. Dr. Gates, who, in addition to serving as co-chair with Dr. Handelsman of the PCAST working group, was a 2011 recipient of the National Medal of Science.

The summit culminated in a panel led by BHEF Chair Barbara Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University, who summarized the discussions from earlier that day and synthesized the key themes emerging from them, describing how BHEF’s model of strategic business engagement can create a cohesive strategy to achieve the PCAST objectives. She was joined by David J. Asai, director, precollege and undergraduate science education, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; BHEF member Jim Clements, president, West Virginia University (representing the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities); John R. Ettinger, CEO, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; Hunter R. Rawlings III, president, Association of American Universities; and Eric A. Spiegel, president and CEO, Siemens Corporation. Together, these experts took the key points from the day and deftly outlined the steps that each is taking to increase the number of STEM graduates to achieve the president’s goal.

Session Takeaways

An unprecedented level of national alignment, engagement, and opportunity exists to improve STEM undergraduate education. STEM leaders agree on a common goal, are mobilizing around President Obama’s goal, and are taking concrete steps to boost the numbers of graduates. The key will be maintaining momentum and attracting new partners to maximize scale and impact.
One year following the PCAST Report, tremendous progress has been made. Ongoing engagement, led by the National STEM Undergraduate Partnership, will provide leadership and focus as well as annual progress reports towards President Obama’s goal.
Research from the PCAST report and BHEF’s modeling project has identified evidence-based practices that increase students’ persistence in STEM. BHEF’s U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model simulates the impact of these strategies at scale. BHEF supports adoption of these practices through regional higher education and workforce projects.

Plenary Session I

Connecting BHEF’s Work with National Policy: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)

As the nation grapples with fundamental issues of national security and privacy, cyber threats continue to grow as does the need to increase public awareness of cybersecurity and build a cyber workforce. In this session, keynote speaker Richard Ledgett, Jr., director of the National Security Agency’s CSS Threat Operations Center, reviewed several of the priority policy issues the NSA is currently facing in cybersecurity, and provided a framework for the subsequent panels in discussing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the nation’s response to cyber workforce needs. In a conversation led by now BHEF immediate Past Chair Wes Bush, Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger provided in-depth background on the development of CISPA and offered his perspectives on how cyber legislation needs to be crafted through bipartisan support that will create the public-private partnerships essential to maintaining national cybersecurity.

Session Takeaways

The sophistication of cyber threats today is beyond what any single company or university can handle on its own, increasing the importance of developing public/private partnerships among business, higher education, and government to combat the nation’s cyber challenges.
Security and policy are not evolving as quickly as the threat as we balance the need for information sharing and right to individual privacy.
To address the growing cybersecurity workforce needs, internships were identified as a critical strategy to get students engaged early in the field and develop crucial security clearances, particularly as shifting demographics, including the advent of large retirements, have the potential to drain the human capital supply chain.

Plenary Session II

What Can BHEF Regional Projects Learn from Successful State Innovation Incubators

This learning session explored lessons that can be taken from the records of successful state and regional networks in building regional higher education and workforce projects. Richard Bendis, president and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, Inc., Maryland’s commercialization collaborative, and W. Mark Crowell, executive director of U.Va. Innovation, discussed critical ingredients to their successes spurring innovation and economic growth. Regions, like the Baltimore-D.C. corridor in Maryland, that possess a critical mass of research universities, national labs and research facilities, and key industry sectors have demonstrated how these ecosystems of scientific and technological, financial, and human capital and commercial resources can be harnessed in service of innovation and economic growth.

Session Takeaways

BHEF’s regional higher education and workforce projects focused on a region’s highest demand jobs can serve as a foundation for developing innovation and commercialization to support economic growth.
Business and higher education can best leverage resources through meaning partnerships and an integrated strategy to support innovation.
Effectively structured and resourced innovation and commercialization networks can help develop talent supply chains, support entrepreneurs and drive innovation.

Next Steps

BHEF will engage with the National Undergraduate STEM Partnership, its federal agency partners, and the White House to develop and implement an actionable strategy towards achieving the one million STEM graduate goal.
BHEF will host a series of workshops and high-profile events to ensure ongoing progress is made towards the goal, featuring the roll-out of additional regional projects and sector networks leading up to our 2014 winter meeting.
BHEF, in partnership with the Navy and the Department of Defense, will translate the findings from the new U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model into an action-agenda, including developing, researching, and modeling new multidimensional programs.
With the release of its new “playbook”, BHEF will work in collaboration with its partners and networks to scale projects, networks, and the learning associated with the development of its regional projects and networks.