Page 9 - CEMS Winter 2022 Newsletter

CEMS NEWS
Life’s Wisdoms
With generous support from Jim Mishek (Met. Eng ’74), CEMS undergraduates participated in a “Footstool Competition” and learned important lessons.
For many years, CEMS alumnus Jim Mishek has made
a presentation in ChEn/MatS 1001 about obstacles that people encounter in their daily lives. He uses a footstool that is tipped over on the floor near a doorway as a metaphor for life’s challenges. Many people will just walk around this obstacle and not concern themselves with it, even though it is clearly an impediment for everyone passing by. A few people, though, might have the thoughtfulness and initiative to stop, pick up the footstool, and move it out of the way and into a position where it is helpful or useful, rather than an obstacle.
Mishek argues that innovation is finding ways to deal with those “footstools” effectively, or to get rid of them, in order to reduce stress, to make our tasks easier
and more enjoyable or to help others. Behaving in this way can lead to personal or professional happiness or recognition by friends, family, and coworkers. Mishek hoped to convey that innovation is an important life skill.
This past semester, Mishek donated 60 copies of his book, Life’s Wisdoms to students in ChEn/MatS 1001 to further convey lessons of character, attitude, leadership, and vision and challenged them to participate in a voluntary “Footstool Competition” that awarded the top five essays with monetary awards.
First-year undergraduate student Lucca Figari won the top prize of $500 for his essay (a portion of which is printed below):
“The footstool I am most concerned about is Hispanic- American representation in STEM careers. While studying at the University of Minnesota, I have only met three other Hispanics pursuing an engineering degree, and I have yet to meet a Hispanic professional within
my department. Worse, many of the immigrant families
I am close to do not have children who are confident in their ability to pursue STEM careers, nor do they even desire them. Despite Hispanics being the second largest ethnic group within the United States, they only make
up eight percent of the STEM workforce.1 These disparities are too large to be merely coincidental, so it must be something systemic that creates them. This systemic limitation on Hispanics in STEM is what I would like to resolve.
There are many problems
that this [disparity] will cause
for the United States, and
even for the global economy.
Within the United States,
Hispanics are one of the
largest growing ethnic groups. They accounted for 51.1 percent of the USA’s population growth between 2010 and 2020.2 If there are not role models and opportunities for Hispanics to follow into scientific fields, we could quickly see a gap form between our demand for STEM workers and our ability to supply them. Even beyond U.S. borders there exist many reasons to increase Hispanic involvement in STEM careers. It is well known that the second most spoken language in the world is Spanish. This makes it necessary to have engineers who aren’t just fluent in Spanish, but also competent with
the cultures of these foreign partners. Without Hispanic professionals to work with these other countries, the United States loses the opportunity to truly assist in the globalization of the developing economies in South and Central America. This footstool has potential to cause incredible harm to the competitiveness of our economy.
To finish, I want to mention my connection to this problem. My parents immigrated from Peru 30 years ago. My brothers and I were raised speaking Spanish, and over time there developed an “American grown with Peruvian roots” mentality among us. This deep connection to my Hispanic roots is the strongest source
continued on page 13
Lucca Figari
CEMSnews Winter 2022 9