About Delta SEE

Perspectives on the Science and Everyday Experiences (SEE)
Initiative from the SEE Leadership

By Mona Bailey and Gwendolyn Boyd

Mona Bailey		Gwendolyn Boyd

The National organizations, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. together with its over 900 chapters, Delta Research and Educational Foundation (DREF) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) are collaborating on a five-year national initiative to make literacy, competency and advocacy in science, mathematics and technology a priority among African-American youth and their families.

The collaborators envision that the Science and Everyday Experiences (SEE) Initiative, through a variety of informal everyday experiences, will bring about change that is positive and pervasive for African-American youth. In effect, the change that is evident in the SEE initiative captures the characteristics that Talcott Parsons maintained must prevail for positive social change to occur. Parsons stated that positive social change requires:

• A change in roles with those previously excluded now included;
• A change in role relationships in which there is no subordinate roles; and
• A change in status providing not simply equitable inclusion but a respected position.

Those three changes permeate the SEE project. First, there is a change in roles as African-American youth and their families become creators and informed users of science, mathematics and technology rather than simply consumers.

Second, a change in role and relationships for SEE participants will result from experiences that provide the impetus for participants to join with decision makers in shaping policies and practices in science and technology that impact their lives, well being and career choices. Third, it is planned that SEE will bring about a status change for African-American youth resulting in their influence and contributions being recognized and respected.

These changes will produce a positive change in the culture with a worldview in which science, mathematics and technology are deemed important and worthy of participation and respect. Thus, these changes through SEE will facilitate and motivate the empowerment of SEE participants.

The pyramid for change, coupled with the symbol for energy and power symbolizes the positive impact SEE will have on the participants as they are trained throughout the vast network of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Science and Everyday Experiences is more than a title; it becomes a new way of life. It is an honor for the three collaborators to use their leadership in making this positive change a reality for African-American youth and their families.

Gwendolyn E. Boyd		Mona H. Bailey

Science and Everyday Experiences Advisory Board Co-Chair