Are we Gatekeepers or Groundskeepers? Being a good introductory STEMM instructor in a pandemic and beyond

Posted: Feb 1 2022 by

Jennifer Tsan
University of Chicago

Alice Tarun
St. Lawrence University

Tina Tao
St. Lawrence University

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Laura Frost
Florida Gulf Coast University

Laura Frost, Florida Gulf Coast University; Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University; Tina Tao, St. Lawrence University; Alice Tarun, St. Lawrence University; and Jennifer Tsan, University of Chicago

​​Georgia was a confident high school student. Despite the pandemic she continued to earn high marks in her science courses, motivating her to pursue a science major as she began college. She entered her first year at Perpetual University taking introductory biology and chemistry, along with participating in ROTC and community service learning. Although she had many commitments outside the classroom, she believed she could manage all her obligations on her own. But when she began failing quizzes and exams, instead of seeking out resources on campus right away, she put off reviewing her work and intended to address the concerns later. By the end of her first semester, she was facing academic suspension. In her view she felt ashamed for being in this position and couldn't bear to face the issues even though her professors, advisor, and academic support staff reached out to her and offered to help. Although Georgia was able to continue her college studies, she turned away from the science track because she could not envision success in these courses in her future. 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

Learning from Evaluation of Effective Teaching Event: Perspectives on Aligning Incentives

Posted: Sep 23 2021 by

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Christine Broussard
University of La Verne

Christine Broussard, University of La Verne 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 heard from working group leaders Christine Broussard, Kadian Callahan, and Holly Cho, and a special guest, Susan Elrod. We were fortunate to have 100 participants join us for the session as well, who represented 77 different institutions. The purpose of this blog post is to give brief highlights regarding what we learned from this event. We recommend that if the topic and event interests you, please watch the recording and access the resources on the event page. 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