2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The LIDERES project brings together three public R1 universities in the western United States to tackle the underrepresentation of African American, Hispanic American, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander scholars in STEM graduate programs and faculty positions. The project was funded by NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Catalyst Alliance (AGEP-ACA) program. The project involved a multi-faceted approach: (i) managerial engagement meetings to mobilize STEM leaders, (ii) an innovative factorial experiment to identify local institutional and departmental barriers to equity, (iii) self-assessment reports on graduate student success, and (iv) the development of a set of five-year equity goals at each partner institution.

Key to the project’s approach was the use of managerial engagement, which actively involves institutional leaders in identifying challenges and driving diversity efforts. By engaging STEM leaders through leadership committees and promoting accountability, we made significant progress in fostering institutional buy-in and commitment to equity goals. Complementing this was the "small wins" strategy, which focuses on achieving incremental, tangible changes that build momentum for broader institutional transformation.

We used evidence from the factorial experiment and the self-assessment report informed our managerial engagement meetings, ensuring that leadership discussions and decisions are grounded in evidence and tailored to address specific, local institutional barriers, while allowing leaders at all partner institutions to brainstorm and share knowledge on potential solutions. The factorial experiment utilized institutional data and surveys to identify key barriers hindering the recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented minority faculty in STEM at each institution. The factorial experiment provided a rigorous, data-driven approach to uncovering specific institutional and departmental obstacles. Building on our faculty factorial experiment, we also administered a self-assessment report on graduate student success, which offered insights into the experiences and challenges of URM students across partner institutions. Findings show that lack of appropriate mentoring, mental health, and access to university resources were common challenges to degree completion. These efforts resulted in the writing of a set of attainable goals for institutions to pursue over the next five years based directly on evidence gathered and shared expertise.