SECNAV Outlines Plan to Renew Focus on STEM Education

U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presents the Department of the Navy's science, technology, engineering and mathematics strategy June 15 at the Naval STEM Forum hosted by the Office of Naval Research.

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Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced his plan to strengthen the service's future workforce June 15 at the Naval STEM Forum held June 15-16 in Alexandria, Va.

The plan reinforces President Barack Obama's call to improve America's science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education over the next decade.

“I have committed to doubling the Navy's investment in STEM education over the next five years,” Mabus said in his keynote speech as he kicked off the 2011 forum. “We are going to double it in a targeted and innovative way so that we reach the maximum number of people and have the maximum impact.”

Mabus used his keynote speech to introduce a roadmap aimed at renewing the Navy's focus on providing educational opportunities for future naval scientists and engineers.

Mabus said the Navy's STEM priority areas will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, engage students in STEM-related hands-on learning using Navy-centric content, educate students in the STEM disciplines so they are prepared for the Navy and Marine Corps' high-tech careers, employ, retain and develop naval STEM professionals, and collaborate across the naval STEM enterprise with organizations around the country to maximize the benefit to the Navy and Marine Corps.

This roadmap, Mabus said, introduces exciting new programs that will help increase participation by students and teachers in under-represented communities and also address gaps in the current naval STEM portfolio.

The move will increase the Navy's financial commitment to STEM education initiatives to more than $100 million by 2015, up from $54 million in 2010.

“In the fleet and in the operating services, sailors and Marines are called upon every day to do a lot of really difficult things,” Mabus said. “They work on the world's most complicated and best anti-air and anti-missile systems. They maintain avionics systems. They hang ordnance on aircraft heading out for combat missions, and they operate the nuclear power plants on subs and our carriers.”

These technically challenging missions, he said, takes more than intelligence; they require critical thinking skills received from a great education.

“It is more clear now than it has ever been that our nation's security depends on our smarts as well as our strength,” said Mabus.

The Department of the Navy's emphasis on STEM initiatives is due in part to an aging science and technology workforce. More than 50 percent of the Navy's scientists, engineers and individuals in related disciplines will be retirement eligible by 2020.

To establish a strong naval STEM program requires collaboration. To achieve this, the Office of Naval Research will become the coordinating body for naval STEM, facilitating efforts across the service. The Department of the Navy's science and technology agency will develop and promote common policies and tools to support STEM education, establishing a "one-stop" information portal for public exchange of naval STEM programs and develop partnerships with federal agencies, stakeholders and other services, said Mabus.

“The U.S. is a world technology leader, and the goal of Navy STEM is to keep it that way,” said Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, chief of naval research. “Each of the member organizations across the naval research enterprise are deeply committed to actively supporting the secretary's plan.”