PBS NewsHour

In an interview, Spelman College president Beverly Daniel Tatum discussed the move by the historically black women's liberal arts college to shift its focus towards science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Tatum recently won the Carnegie Corporation's annual Academic Leadership Award for her efforts to encourage women to pursue STEM careers and for her decision to replace intercollegiate sports with wellness activities. "A third of our students are STEM majors," Tatum says. "And we want to [ensure] that they can move into fields where they are underrepresented and make a difference to our economy and to our nation." Although Spelman remains a traditional liberal arts college, a third of the school's incoming students want to pursue science. "They may be thinking about health careers initially. But once they start to explore biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering, they see a wider range of options," Tatum says. To read further, please visit http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec13/spelman_12-09.html. .