Flying with Sankofa: Moving forward by learning from the past

Posted: Aug 23 2022 by

Ruthmae Sears
University of South Florida

Laura Frost
Florida Gulf Coast University

Alec Cattell
Texas Tech University

Alec Cattell, Texas Tech University; Laura Frost, Florida Gulf Coast University; and Ruthmae Sears, University of South Florida

*All authors contributed equally to the document.

It is important to celebrate the heroes in our society who spoke up, and who took action to change systems and improve the lives of many. For instance, our nation celebrates heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose legacy continues to inspire civil rights initiatives and advocacy for equitable opportunities. The living legend Shirley Malcom, director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) SEA Change program, was recently celebrated when her name was recognized on a building at her alma mater, Penn State University. Over her career, Dr. Malcom has tirelessly advocated and brought attention to the challenges of intersectionality, specifically the challenges faced by women of color in the sciences. More

Learning from Evaluation of Effective Teaching Event: Change Leaders Perspectives

Posted: Sep 27 2021 by

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Madhura Kulkarni
Northern Kentucky University

Madhura Kulkarni, Northern Kentucky University and Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University

At the end of August, three ASCN working groups came together to put on an event called, "Evaluation of effective and inclusive teaching: How can teaching and learning center professionals be involved in change for social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion?" (We will refer to social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as JEDI for ease throughout this post.) We recommend that people interested in the event watch the recording and access the resources on the event page, but the purpose of this blog post is to highlight what we learned from this event so that other change agents can implement the findings into their work immediately.

Big questions that we wanted to focus on included the who, what, and how of transforming teaching. To understand how change happens, and how we might help create teaching evaluation change on our campuses, we asked Dr. Susan Elrod to describe her work modeling institutional change. More

Building Structural Equity: What do our organizations need?

Posted: Aug 31 2021 by

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Nita Kedharnath
Henry Ford Community College

Nita Kedharnath, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (SEISMIC) and Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University (ASCN)

ASCN and SEISMIC began collaborating in spring 2021 to understand how both organizations could synergistically support STEM education transformation. These collaborative meetings included the project coordinators of both organizations and the authors of this piece, Nita Kedharnath (project manager of SEISMIC) and Rachel Renbarger (research director of ASCN). We started meeting monthly to discuss equity challenges within our organizations, to problem-solve together, and to share resources to ensure equity progress continues for both our groups even while we target different priorities.

In March, the murder of Asian American women working at spas in Atlanta amplified calls for anti-racist actions from institutions in the United States, including institutions of higher education. During one of our collaborative meetings, we asked each other what steps our respective organizations have taken toward racial justice. While both ASCN and SEISMIC had been working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in STEM education since the organizations' inceptions, this work was outward-facing and dedicated to helping university faculty members change their institutional settings. What were our organizations' roles in tackling racial justice? What should we be doing as leaders? This lack of a clear path forward led us to ask these questions to experts who have been doing this reflective work within STEM higher education. More

How do we recruit, support, and retain diverse faculty? Reflections from our discussion series

Posted: Aug 2 2021 by

Patricia Marsteller
Emory University

Pat Marsteller, co-leader of working group 5, Professor of Practice in Biology Emeritus, Emory University

Equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice are foundational in effective higher education settings, including STEM disciplines. Our ASCN working group brings together communities whose work focuses on justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity (JEDI) in higher education. In spring 2021, we focused on a series of informal conversations centered on recruiting diverse faculty. In the series we discussed:

• Why recruiting diverse faculty is important.
• Promising practices for department leaders, such as creating detailed and inclusive recruitment plans, utilizing cluster hires, broadening searches, using faculty search advocates, and providing JEDI education for faculty and for search committees.
• Working with other institutional actors (e.g., data analysts, deans) for institutional and departmental reflections, hiring plans, and data needs. More

Transforming Institutions Takeaways

Posted: Jun 24 2021 by

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University

Last week concluded the 2021 Transforming Institutions Conference that marked the 10th year of convening like-minded change leaders. The event was a rousing success; we had over 250 participants from at least 3 continents with over 40 concurrent presentations, 60+ posters, and 4 workshops containing research-based strategies for improving higher education. What did we learn from such an amazing event? More