Start somewhere: Resources on equity and inclusion for STEM and higher education
Kate White Temple University Naneh Apkarian Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director Naneh Apkarian (Western Michigan University)
These recent articles and resources are meant to serve as a starting point for learning about equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice - with a particular focus on addressing systemic anti-Black racism - within STEM and higher education. This list of resources is long, but not by any means exhaustive. As change agents and scholars, we know that effecting change requires informed action. We hope you will use these and other resources to develop concrete and informed action plans. Please use the comments to share additional resources and concrete actions being taken by you and your institution. We also invite you to join the conversation in our Equity and Inclusion Working Group. If you would like to join, please fill out the form to Join the Network and indicate that you would like to join Working Group 5 (Equity & Inclusion). On Wednesday, June 10, we join the movement to #ShutdownSTEM.

Inclusive Approaches to Reviewing Scholarship: A New Guide
Naneh Apkarian, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus; Kathy Quardokus Fisher, University of Notre Dame; Brian Burt, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The ASCN Guiding Theories Working Group is working on answering the question "How might we better support people's use of theories, models, and scholarship in their planned systemic change efforts?" The Breaking Down Silos working meeting (previously discussed on the ASCN blog) brought together scholars to discuss and organize existing theories and models of change from scholarship related to change in undergraduate STEM education. One of the discussions focused on representation, which in turn led to the development of the Guide to Inclusion Awareness in the Organization of Knowledge (Acrobat (PDF) 216kB May28 19), which is the subject of this post. At Breaking Down Silos, the question of inclusion and exclusion arose. That is, what literature was included in the body of work considered to be relevant, and what was left out? Who was represented at the meeting (and in the working group), and who was not? Why? What are the resulting implications of these boundaries for our work? These questions are relevant across many contexts, and our discussions over the working meeting and beyond led to the creation of the Guide to Inclusion Awareness in the Organization of Knowledge (Acrobat (PDF) 216kB May28 19) document. It is a set of guiding questions to support inclusion and transparency in the creation of scholarly work. In this blog, we highlight and discuss some of the concerns about developing typographies or literature reviews that led to the development of this guide.

Join an ASCN working group!
Kate White Temple University Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director
Have you been considering joining one of our working groups, but aren't sure where to start? Here you'll find updates on what each of our groups is working on and more information on how to get involved in 2020. You can join any of our working groups by filling out this short form. Keep reading to learn more about how we're exploring theories of change; the costs, benefits, and impact of change; change leadership; equity and inclusion in systemic change; aligning faculty work with change; and learning spaces.

Transforming Institutions Takeaways
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?

2023 Transforming Institutions Conference Takeaways
Casey Wright, Western Michigan University
The 2023 Transforming Institutions Conference was held June 12-13, 2023, in Minneapolis, MN. With this most recent convening, we are proud to have brought together change researchers and change agents for 12 years. The meeting was made possible by the efforts of a conference planning committee consisting of 10 change agents convened by NSEC (Network of STEM Education Centers) and ASCN (Accelerating Systemic Change Network), supported by 40 reviewers from the systemic change community. Now that the dust has settled, we would like to share some key takeaways, attendee feedback, and future conference plans to continue to build momentum for our community to thrive with change.

Learning from Evaluation of Effective Teaching Event: Change Leaders Perspectives
Madhura Kulkarni, Northern Kentucky University; 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.

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

Building Structural Equity: What do our organizations need?
Nita Kedharnath, Henry Ford Community College; Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University
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.

Do I want to be recognized? Reflections on my experience with (Dis)Ability and working in Higher Education
Paul Artale, Henry Ford Community College
My name is Paul. I was born missing fingers and have funny arms. I am ok with it. There really isn't much that I can't do and I have learned to adapt. People who looked at me probably thought I could never play college football but yeah...I did that. I even coached it for a while. I loved my time working in athletics and although I looked different, I never felt out of place or discriminated against. I was just Paul Artale, football guy, and keeping teams from scoring on us was the most important thing in the world. I bring up football because being an athlete (and the lessons learned from it) are still very prominent pieces of my identity. Disability is a complex and nuanced identity. Disability is not a primary, or even secondary identity for many people with a disability. My athletic identity, ethnicity, and nationality (Canadian) are far more prevalent in my life. On a good day, it is something I don't think about much about. On a rare bad day it is something that I repress. Disability is often left out of discussions about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because individuals with disabilities frequently do not prioritize their disability identity, or leave it completely out of conversations because it is a secondary or tertiary identity. Another reason is that disability is often perceived as a medical condition; a person has a condition, they adapt, they persist, and they almost forget they had a disability in the first place.

Responding to Racism
Inese Berzina-Pitcher, Western Michigan University
In response to the events that took place in Charlottesville, we sent ASCN members an email with a subject line – "How shall we respond to racism?" in which we condemned these appalling displays of racism, violence, and ignorance, and discussed how they brought to light the importance of education in fighting racism and promoting equity and inclusion. We also reaffirmed that fighting racism and promoting equity and inclusion are a daily responsibility, and an important priority in our work.