Palmetto Report

(Rock Hill, S.C.) — STEM career fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — have long had difficulty attracting women, especially women of color. For example, Forbes reported that women held just a quarter of the 5 million tech jobs in 2015 and women of color, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, represented less than 10 percent of those positions, according to the nonprofit Computing Technology Industry Association. Additionally, only 2.9 percent of black women, 3.6 percent of Latinas and 4.8 of Asian women earn STEM degrees in the U.S. This is also an issue at Winthrop University, despite the school’s efforts to promote diversity among its faculty, where there are only two African-American women among the faculty in Arts and Sciences. We spoke with Dr. Takita Sumter, dean of the college and professor of chemistry, about the issue.