2019 Transforming Institutions Conference Report

Posted: Apr 23 2019 by

Kate White
Temple University

Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director

The 2019 ASCN Transforming Institutions Conference brought together more than 140 researchers, faculty, change agents, and administrators to focus on transforming undergraduate education. We were pleased to include many excellent presentations, posters, workshops, and symposia in our program, some organized into our four tracks: aligning faculty incentives with systemic change (ASCN working group 6), change leadership (ASCN working group 3), equity and inclusion (ASCN working group 5), and guiding theories of change (ASCN working group 1). We'd like to share some highlights from the conference and feedback from our attendees -- keep reading for more! More

Funding Educational Change Projects: A Panel Discussion at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference

Posted: Apr 18 2019 by

Kate White
Temple University

Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director

The panel on funding at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference featured two representatives from funding agencies: David Asai (Senior Director for Science Education, HHMI) and Andrea Nixon (Program Director, Division of Undergraduate Education and Co-Lead, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program, NSF). Gita Bangera (Bellevue College, moderator) introduced our panelists, who started by discussing current initiatives at HHMI and NSF.

David Asai presented HHMI's new competition in the Inclusive excellence initiative; Andrea Nixon discussed NSF's programs in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR Core Research and Building Capacity in STEM Educational Research/BCSER) and their new solicitation for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grants in the Institutional and Community Transformation Track.

Our panelists answered audience questions and we share some of their responses below. More

Breaking Down Silos meeting contributes to the goals of Working Group 1

Posted: Feb 12 2019 by

Daniel Reinholz
San Diego State University

Tessa Andrews
University of Georgia

Tessa Andrews (University of Georgia) and Dan Reinholz (San Diego State University) Twenty-five researchers met for a 2.5-day meeting at the Center for Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University to discuss change theories. This working meeting was supported by a National Science Foundation conference grant (#1830897/1830860) and led by PIs Daniel Reinholz and Tessa Andrews. The meeting brought together early-career scholars to foster cross-disciplinary sense-making and collaborations around change theories. Meeting attendees included graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty of higher education, project advisors, and Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) faculty in the disciplines of mathematics, biology, physics, geoscience, chemistry, and engineering. More

Shared leadership for student success at UW-Whitewater

Posted: Feb 7 2019 by

Meg Waraczynski
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Jodie Parys
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Susan Elrod
Indiana University-South Bend

Susan Elrod, Jodie Parys, and Meg Waraczynski, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Colleges and universities across the country are facing increasing pressure to enroll, retain and graduate more students at a time when the environment for higher education is competitive and often contentious. In order for institutions to be successful in these student success endeavors, everyone must work together. We are all familiar with shared governance as a central tenet of higher education but those processes apply primarily to policy development and decision-making. We argue that shared leadership is required as a holistic approach to goal development and implementation of strategic priorities that foster student and institutional success. In this model, both administrators and faculty/staff leaders play key roles that are essential to the long-term success and sustainability of student success initiatives. Administrators provide a framework for initiatives as they relate to the broader campus community; foster connections between individuals engaged in similar work; provide strategic support and remove barriers to progress; and hold the campus accountable for achieving shared goals. Shared leaders capitalize on their discipline expertise and commitment to student success and program outcomes to fill in the pieces of the framework. They utilize their classroom and program experience to design, test, and apply proposed solutions and also retain ownership of the initiatives and solutions. More

Building on the BOSE Report of Indicators for STEM Education

Posted: Mar 23 2018 by

David Bressoud
Macalester College

David Bressoud, Macalester College

As everyone probably knows by now, the National Academies have released their Indicators for Monitoring Undergraduate STEM Education.

There clearly is much overlap with the charge to the Working Group on Demonstrating Change. We would appreciate informal discussion around two questions:

1. Is there anything left for us to do?
2. Assuming the answer to #1 is "yes," how can we shape our work so as to build on this report? More