2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An NSF-Funded Professional Development Series for Advancing Inclusion at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Presented at Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY) Technical Session 4

With the U.S. recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic inflation, and political scrutiny of a culturally relevant and inclusive curriculum in classrooms, educational institutions have been highlighted as being able to provide equitable and accessible opportunities for historically excluded communities who have suffered, and continue to suffer, in the current context. Within postsecondary education specifically, bold, systemic, and immediate action is necessary to correct unjust systems and to provide minoritized students (MS) (defined in this work as Latinx and African American) with the support they need to succeed academically. Explicitly, higher education initiatives and programs need to address how to dismantle the systems that perpetuate disparities in degree completion between MS and non-minoritized students (non-MS), particularly in the STEM field.

The large disparity in degree completion between MS and non-MS in STEM in the U.S. happens for a confluence of reasons. For one, MS in STEM often report feeling that the teaching and learning environment is not conducive to their engagement in the subject matter because of microaggressions and exclusionary behavior by their peers or faculty, behaviors that are rooted in stereotypes and microaggressions (see Hurtado et al., 2009 for more information). In such learning conditions, STEM classrooms create an unwelcoming culture that does not honor the lived experience of MS seeking to strengthen their knowledge in STEM. However, classroom culture is shown to have a significant impact on MS success in higher education (see Johnson, 2012 for more information). For this reason, postsecondary institutions must intentionally address ways to ensure that all students, of any racial or ethnic background, can realize their full academic potential in STEM.

Faculty play a crucial role in the development of positive (or negative) classroom culture, and there is a need to bring more meaningful faculty engagement into the classroom. To directly address the importance of culture in the classroom for MS success, we will discuss ways in which higher education institutions can develop, implement, and assess professional development programs for STEM faculty. In particular, we will highlight our own professional development program, called The Institute for Meaningful Engagement (TIME), which is a multi-session faculty professional development series integrated into the broader campus community and designed to provide STEM faculty with a curriculum and resources that will enhance inclusion and equity in their teaching and learning spaces. In doing so, we highlight the ways in which a research-oriented project (TIME) provides STEM faculty with the tools and strategies to enhance their pedagogy toward access, equity, and inclusion. Moreover, we highlight how TIME can raise faculty awareness of the classroom and campus culture and practices shape the disparities in the academic success and persistence of MS in STEM, and ways that we can advance access and equity for these students in the STEM field.

Authors

Dr. Pheather R. Harris University of California, Irvine [biography]

Dr. Harris has worked in postsecondary education for over two decades in various capacities. She began her career at Santa Monica College as a counseling aid at the Extended Opportunities Programs and Services office prior to her role as an Assistant Director of Admissions at the University of Southern California. She then moved to Cambridge, MA to pursue her Master’s Degree in Higher Education, with a focus on Risk and Prevention, and began working at Tenacity, a non-profit organization focused on social-emotional learning and literacy development for middle school youth, as a Prevention Specialist. Dr. Harris formally moved to the east coast when she began her work at the Gates Millennium Scholars Program as a Senior Program Manager – managing the Academic Empowerment Program across partner organizations: the United Negro College Fund, The Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, The Hispanic Scholarship Fund, and the American Indian Graduate Center Scholars. Dr. Harris received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from the University of Southern California, a Master of Arts degree in Education from Harvard University, and a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from The George Washington University. She is also an NSF IASPIRE Fellow and the Principal Investigator on a nearly $3-million dollar grant aimed at advancing access, diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM . Her research interest includes exploring the relationship between faculty mentor engagement and minoritized student STEM persistence. She is a critical methodologist who uses both post positivism and postmodernism to guide her inquiries.
Dr. Dianne G. Delima University of California, Irvine [biography]

Dr. Dianne G. Delima is the Project Policy Analyst for The Institute for Meaningful Engagement (TIME). Dr. Delima received her doctorate in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she focused on the learning experiences of first-generation college-going students of color and faculty members' use of a funds of knowledge approach for teaching in college classrooms. Her research has been published in College Teaching and in two edited volumes. Dr. Delima's work and research interests are informed by her prior roles in elementary schools in Southern California, as a Research Assistant for the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona, and her involvement with Professor Anna Neumann on Metropolitan Colleges Institute for Teaching Improvement at Columbia University. Her research interests in higher education are supplemented by her prior work as a student affairs administrator at Barnard College and as a Researcher and Administrative Coordinator for the Center for Understanding Race Education, under the direction of Professor Amy Stuart Wells.

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