Improving STEM Education

Both of the professional organizations I currently belong to - ACM and ASQ, are deeply concerned with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education - particularly how to include more women. Including more women in the education hopefully will also include more women and leaders in the professions and will help the professions become more flexible and innovative by widening the pool and variety of talents and experiences. Usually the proposed solution is to encourage more women by offering more female role models and removing barriers such as the stereo-types portrayed in the xkcd comic: How it Works.

I would like to suggest a complimentary strategy - make STEM careers more family friendly. Having parents in the home that value STEM could be one of the most effective ways to encourage more young people to pursue STEM education. Among my contemporaries that chose STEM education, the vast majority had at least one parent who already had an interest in these areas. Most had two. Richard Feyman pursued physics in part because his Father was willing to explain things. I have a niece pursuing paleontology because both her mother and father are interested in living things.

Here is my list of things that would make STEM careers more family friendly, and get individuals with STEM careers interacting with their children:

1. Allow flexible hours - stop concentrating on the amount of face time spent in the lab/office/server room and start worrying about the work being done. There are several studies that illustrate more hours at work don't equate to more productive hours at work.
2. Allow remote work when/where possible. With the available communications many jobs do not require someone to be present. You can teach from a home office; you can research from a home office; you can program from a home office. For many people just removing out the time to go to and from the office gives them hours with their family.
3. Respect family time. I had a fantasy for years about becoming my senior manager's boss. In my fantasy, I made him check in his laptop and cellphone when he scheduled vacation. He was notorious for keeping the stream of emails and phone calls up during his vacations as if he were in the office. I can't imagine he spent much time paying attention to his family. Just because someone can be connected 24/7 don't expect them to be. If they are needed for emergencies then schedule them to be on call. If not, then leave them alone.
4. Allow people to easily exit and reenter roles. One of the most frustrating things that parents face is the prospect that you need to fill a specific role now. There is a perception that we steadily climb hierarchies and the rise to the top of our professions is somehow a race. Someone who is perfectly capable of being the dean of a department at 45, may wish to delay that position until children have graduated, or may want to take a lesser position to allow a spouse to advance in a career. Should that individual be penalized because the timing wasn't right for a family's needs? Why can't we allow sabbaticals to raise children, or allow a spouse to work? How could we manage periods when individuals are in the "work" force?