[Lil' Lavery]

There seems to be a jump in logic that I'm not following from many of the "STEAM advocates." Why must the "A" be included in order for the connection between "the Arts" and STEM to be emphasized? Why must the "A" be included in order to encourage multi-disciplined actions?

STEM education organizations (including FIRST) have long had the stated goal of increasing students entering into STEM professions, typically with an angle that stresses on fixing the shortage of professional talent in STEM fields.

That doesn't mean they exclude Art fields or discourage multi-disciplined actions. In fact, FIRST is proof in the pudding that multi-disciplined fields are important within STEM. FIRST has long encouraged the importance of integrating design, imagery, entrepreneurship, industrial arts, vocational training, creativity, language arts, and cultural engagement. We've seen FIRST push for videography with their Chairman's video requirements. We've had awards for computer animation. We've had FIRST HQ sanctioned musical parody contests. All of this has occurred under a "STEM" banner with a concrete and definite focus on increasing cultural valuation of STEM disciplines. The arts were never excluded, but the end goal was a definite vision for culture change towards STEM.

When someone advocates for STEM, they're not advocating against the Arts or any other discipline. They aren't saying the Arts aren't important or that they're not applicable to STEM fields. Just the same as when someone advocates to "Save the Rainforest" they aren't saying you should burn down the Pine Forests and Sequoia Forests. There's no reason you have to change the "Save the Whales" slogan to "Save the Marine Mammals." Similarly you don't need to change STEM to STEAM, as it does not help the end goal of STEM. It only dilutes the message. Are STEAM advocates now pushing for more Humanities majors in addition to Computer Science majors? Is a STEAM center of an educational campus supposed to have pottery studios in addition to the machine shop? Is a scholarship for specific Bachelor of Science degrees no longer be applicable to STEAM because it doesn't include "the Arts?"

Inspiration isn't a zero-sum game. Just because we're working to inspire STEM leaders doesn't mean we're working to take away their passion for the Arts.

TL;DR - STEM already encompasses the cross-discipline aspects of the Arts (and business and other fields) with Engineering and other aspects. STEAM is not necessary, and clouds the explicit end-goals of a STEM movement.