Kay Hagan

We're going to go ahead and start because we do have several votes.

What can this committee do to support efforts to improve the quality of STEM education being provided to military children?

We would appreciate your continued support for human resource flexibilities, such as the direct hiring authorities authorized in the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2014.

What new initiatives are you developing to enhance the quality and diversity of the DOD science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce?

What is the status of the implementation of these authorities and the delegation of the flexibilities to the laboratory directors?

What can the subcommittee do to support these efforts?

Those all sound great. Thank you.

That would be great going to our HBCUs.

I would like to see what steps we can take to strengthen the tie between DOD and HBCUs.

I think diversity brings so much to the table when we're talking about all areas.

I think maybe better oversight from DOD could make a big difference.

Given our diversity and technical hiring challenges, this is disturbing.

I want to follow up, Mr. Shaffer. Since fiscal year 2010, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) program has been cut from $67 million down to $36 million.

If we want to influence the workforce 15 to 20 years from now, we really need to have that outreach in our K through 12 programs.

It would be, I think, very beneficial for DOD to have a strong focus on our military dependents.

I think we need to do more in making our workforce as diverse as possible, as representative of America as possible.

I worry that we're not doing enough to foster diversity within the overall DOD STEM workforce.

One of the things about this hearing that is exceptional is the fact that before us we have three highly qualified and distinguished women leading large and important technical organizations on behalf of the Nation.

I want on this subcommittee to do everything we can to support DARPA's efforts at investing in those high-risk, high payoffs.

I'd like you to address that and then tell me what you can see as a possibility, how we, everybody in this room, can work together to have a focus on our military children in school.

I think we owe it to the children, we owe it to their parents, to provide the best STEM opportunities possible.

I want to really look at how we can use STEM activities in education for our military children.

It seems like as we reduce basic research, though, we're really hurting ourselves in the long-term.

$200 million will cut about 1,500 grants nationwide, give or take.

Ms. Harrington, the fiscal year 2015 request reduces funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program by roughly 27 percent relative to last year's appropriation.