Mark your calendars! Our 2024 ADVANCE Equity in STEM Community Convening will take place June 2-5 at the Hilton Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland.
The University of Memphis’s ASPIRED project, which established the Tiger-Lilly Collective (TLC) theatre group, is currently seeking proposals for a theater sketch that effectively addresses diversity and equity concepts while considering divisive language legislation in the creative process.
Recommended topics include implicit bias, work-life balane, tenure & promotion, harassment, department climate, gender equity, equal opportunity, and COVID impact on research. Please submit your script on the above topics or any other related topic of choice with your name and affiliation to mmivy@memphis.edu for review.
The aim is to respond and/or provide feedback within two weeks to let you know whether or not we wish to further engage with your work. Once we accept your work, we will send a contributor contract. To submit a script or ask about the process, please email the executive director of TLC and PI of NSF ADVANCE, Dr. Esra Ozdenerol, at eozdenrl@memphis.edu.
The TLC gets its name from Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case for equal pay for women that eventually prompted President Obama to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. This name connects the UM Tigers with this pioneer and this important piece of legislation. TLC actors are UofM students from the Theater department. Through this program, ASPIRED has created interactive theater sketches on implicit bias, tenure and promotion, and work-life issues as well as case studies for our search committee trainings. The TLC is compiling a script book to use theater in advancing equity in teaching, learning, and institutional climate while adhering to current divisive language legislation. A paperback and eBook will be made available through Amazon.
Save the date for two upcoming ARC Network webinars:
Please join NSF Program Officers to learn more about the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) EDU Core Research Program (ECR) through two informational webinars:
ECR Program Overview
Monday, August 21, 2023, from 3-4 pm ET
ECR program officers will provide an overview of the ECR requirements; a description of fundamental research; examples of ECR funded studies; responses to submitted questions; and open Question and Answer time. Register here.
Last-minute Tips and Audience Q&A
Thursday, September 7, 2023, from 3-4 pm ET
Scheduled to take place just one month before the ECR submission deadline of October 5, ECR program officers will share tips on how to prepare competitive ECR proposals and answer your last-minute questions. Register here.
You must register in advance to attend these webinars. The registration pages will allow you to submit questions you'd like ECR program officers to address during the webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing Zoom information to join the webinar.
The Amplifying the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS+) is excited to offer the Equity Environmental Scanning Tool (EEST) for free under a Creative Commons license. The EEST is a comprehensive DEI self-assessment tool. In addition to assisting professional societies in discerning both strengths and areas for attention, it also centralizes data and provides direction for actionable changes.
“We hope this self-assessment tool will help professional societies stimulate internal conversations as they assess their DEI performance,” says Dr. Ershela Sims, PI of ACCESS+ and Executive Director of WEPAN.
The EEST is comprised of three sections. The first section is organized according to twelve functional areas that are typical of society operation, such as membership and publishing. The second section asks for information on a series of DEI performance measurement questions for each of the twelve areas. The third section consists of open-ended questions to identify society DEI successes and challenges.
Read the press release and download the EEST at at: https://accessplusstem.com/products/
Conference materials from the 2023 ADVANCE EiSCC have been uploaded to the ARC Network Resource Library! You can access all presentations and posters from this year and our 2022 convening.
Dr. Christy B. Till, Associate Professor, School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University, is seeking an evaluator for a small pilot project of limited scope, duration, and sample size looking at the impact of using learning outcomes and associated rubrics for graduate student assessment in doctoral qualifying exams. The project will study qualifying exam assessment in three Earth & space science PhD programs within the School of Earth & Space Exploration at Arizona State University, with a specific focus on whether these assessment instruments promote equity and inclusion in the degree programs.
The evaluation will consist of a pre- and post-exam survey of 30-40 items using mixed methods and surveying two different populations involved in the pilot project (graduate students and faculty). Questions may pertain to participants’ satisfaction with the new assessment instruments, how it affects the students’ inclusion and retention in the program, and thematic analysis of open-ended questions, for example.
The desired timeline is as follows: 1) Fall 2023 semester: survey design & approval; 2) Spring 2024 semester: pre- and post- exam survey deployment; and 3) Summer 2024: data analysis and project wrap-up. Ideally, the results of the evaluation will be used to determine the potential for expanded implementation of the assessment instruments at Arizona State University and a grant proposal to study its implementation at other Earth & space science PhD programs in the US.
A small amount of funding is available to support the evaluator’s participation. Please contact at cbtill@asu.edu with questions and/or interest in the project.
WEPAN welcomes session proposals for the Women in Engineering Program Day (WIEP) and Women of Color Summit (WOCS).
Started in 2021, the WIEP and WOCS are manifestations of WEPAN’s commitment to support practitioners of Women in Engineering (WIE) and synonymous programs (WiSE, MEP, etc.) and prioritizing Women of Color in engineering and STEM more broadly. For 2023, we are applying lessons learned to create a more engaged experience while continuing to share adaptable resources and knowledge.
To read more about the submission process and submit all materials, visit wepan.org/cfp/call-for-proposals. The closing date is August 23, 2023, at 11:59 PM PT.
The Women in Engineering Program Day (WIEP) pays homage to WEPAN’s origins as an organization founded by Women in Engineering Program practitioners. Our second annual WIEP builds on the inaugural theme calling us to remember our roots and convenes practitioners and other stakeholders in the advancement of women in engineering to network, share resources, and discuss promising practices for supporting women in engineering.
The Women of Color Summit (WOCS) recognizes that, while critical to STEM fields, Women of Color are often underserved, under-resourced, and undervalued in their respective fields. The WOCS continues to raise awareness of both the common and the unique experiences of Women of Color as they navigate STEM careers while emphasizing the need to disaggregate WoC identifies in order to develop effective practices. The WOCS brings together Women of Color in STEM with individuals and organizations who authentically support WoC in thriving and advancing in their chosen fields.
Collected resources and news regarding our Virtual Visiting Scholars andEmerging Research Workshops.
The two newest reports from the ARC Network's Emerging Research Workshops have been released. The reports, "Using Big Data and Algorithms to Foster Equity in STEM" and "Cultivating Equity In STEM Through Inclusive Language," cover research and promising practices on each of the topics and suggest new directions for future work. We invite the community to share their expertise on the topics. To read the reports and share your input visit https://www.equityinstem.org/about-emerging-research-workshops.
A selection of equity, diversity, and inclusion-related articles.
"What I feared happened. The Supreme Court of the United States in an expected decision of six to three, and following a trend of its conservative majority, eliminated the affirmative action law that until today allowed significant number of universities to guarantee that a portion of their matriculants would come from underrepresented groups if they met the admission requirements. Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed the following on Justice Roberts’ description of acceptable consideration of race: “The Court’s opinion circumscribes universities’ ability to consider race in any form by meticulously gutting [their] asserted diversity interests…Yet, because the court cannot escape the inevitable truth that race matters in students’ lives, it announces a false promise to save face and appear attuned to reality. No one is fooled."
Publications, reports, or communications relevant to equity in the academy. All resources listed below are available in the ARC Network online resource library.
“This narrative and integrative literature review synthesizes the literature on when, where, and how the faculty hiring process used in most American higher education settings operates with implicit and cognitive bias. The literature review analyzes the “four phases” of the faculty hiring process, drawing on theories from behavioral economics and social psychology. The results show that although much research establishes the presence of bias in hiring, relatively few studies examine interventions or “nudges” that might be used to mitigate bias and encourage the recruitment and hiring of faculty identified as women and/or faculty identified as being from an underrepresented minority group.”
“Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, disability, gender orientation, and other characteristics continues to distort employers' hiring decisions and thereby limit employment opportunities for historically excluded groups. Research in psychology, sociology, economics, and management provides insights concerning the mechanisms of bias and interventions to mitigate their effects, but important questions remain.”
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