2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In typical Engineering and Science education, students often are not given opportunities to build skills outside of narrowly defined, technical domains (Lucena 2013). Experiences that encourage students to engage in social justice and activist work is crowded out in traditional STEM programs. Oftentimes, these structures must be created deliberately in order to provide student leaders with this type of mentorship (Leydens 2014, Nieusma 2011). One such initiative, the Access Network, aims to do just that. The Access Network is a collection of programs (sites) that are situated in U.S. universities that work towards a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible version of the STEM community (Quan 2019). Access prioritizes student leaders, both at the network-level and in their local sites, by empowering them to take the lead on actions and by providing support for this work. Access sites engage in activities that build inclusive learning communities, provide guidance through peer mentorship, and support growth in students’ leadership around social justice.

One major function of the Access Network is to connect students across these local efforts and to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences between sites. One central way that this is done is through the work of Network Fellows, student leaders who work collaboratively in network decision-making and team projects that support the network and the sites. The Network Fellow team is mentored by two members of the Core Organizers team—long time members of the Access Network who have experience in activist change work within academia and who typically hold faculty-level positions at their institutions. Network Fellows are supported by a stipend for the semester-long position, which acknowledges the importance of their work, which is often devalued in STEM academia. Additionally, Access values students’ expertise in their own experiences of the STEM community, and empowers them to pursue projects and change efforts that they see as important.

The Network Fellow position is one that is quite unique in STEM higher education. It provides space for students to take power over decision making and supports them through mentorship in social justice and activist approaches (Amezcua 2020). To better understand how students approach this role and view their work, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with nine Network Fellows who served in the role for at least two semesters. In our analysis of emergent themes, we have found that individual agency over their work, shared leadership in decision making, and building relationships across the network that connect to a larger movement are key outcomes of the Network Fellow experience. We have additionally identified key conceptualizations of the team collaboration that Network Fellows discuss that cultivate the outcomes described above. We see these conceptualizations as important for capturing how the Network Fellow team conducts its work. We hope for our work to serve as a model for others that wish to cultivate similar experiences for their own students in STEM.