Blogs

A New Impact-Focused Model

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
The new model for NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES (INCLUDES) National Network is launching! We heard you. The Alliance Collective’s Community Workshop report asked for support from the INCLUDES Coordination Hub (Hub) to: move toward systemic change; coalesce around one big transformational and aspirational collective goal; tell the story of the INCLUDES community; utilize collaborative mechanisms that allow for collaboration and reflection; share and collect data together; and grow in a way that incorporates policy-related work. The Hub’s new model will launch in April and is tuned to support these community-based recommendations. We’re introducing ...

It’s a New Phase for the National Network

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
Dear INCLUDES National Network members and friends: Season’s greetings from the INCLUDES Coordination Hub! We’re excited to share with you the specifics about our new vision and what they mean for our engagement with you. The INCLUDES Coordination Hub (Hub) partners — SRI , UC Berkeley’s College & Career Alliance Support Network , Quality Education for Minorities , and WestEd — are opening up new avenues of support for the National Network. We are building momentum for the National Network to be the nation’s go-to entity for people to learn about strategies, practices, and models to create equitable opportunities for people to thrive in STEM ...

Understanding and Measuring Systems Change

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
By Kathy Booth, INCLUDES Coordination Hub Co-Principal Investigator In August, members of NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES National Network (National Network) met in Washington, DC, to share strategies for broadening participation in STEM and learn how our efforts are addressing systems change. At the opening plenary , members of the INCLUDES Coordination Hub (Hub) outlined the relationship between the INCLUDES Theory of Change, strategies associated with building collaborative infrastructure, and the conditions for systems change, with a focus on how the INCLUDES Initiative will measure outcomes in each domain. This post shares that framing and provides ...

Introducing a New Vision

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
By Andrea Venezia on behalf of the Coordination Hub NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Coordination Hub (the Coordination Hub) is thrilled to announce that it will be supporting the INCLUDES National Network (National Network) for another five-year cycle! We envision the National Network as a go-to entity for people across the country to learn about strategies, practices, and models to create equitable opportunities in STEM fields. The National Network is focused on changing systems that hold inequities in place to broaden participation in STEM. The National Network will leverage the foundation built since the inception of NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson ...

Building with Gratitude: A Glimpse at Sustainability Plans for the INCLUDES Coordination Hub

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
By Andrea Venezia, INCLUDES Coordination Hub Director, and Seth Klukoff, INCLUDES Coordination Hub Co-Principal Investigator August 31, 2023, marks the end of the funding cycle that supported NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Coordination Hub from 2018-2023. In this post, we reflect on those five years, on our gratitude to the INCLUDES community, and on plans for sustainability. We have learned a great deal from the INCLUDES National Network over the past five years and hope to maintain your engagement and involvement for years to come. As we look back on the past five years, we would like to share several important results from these first five years ...

Strengthening the Movement to Broaden Participation in STEM

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
Highlights from NSF’s 2023 Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES National Network Convening By Carissa Chang Cress and Carise Mitch, Equal Measure, partners in NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Coordination Hub Earlier this month, nearly 300 practitioners, researchers, students, faculty, and colleagues from federal agencies met in Washington, DC, to accelerate the national movement to broaden participation in STEM education and careers. The 2023 INCLUDES National Network Convening, Sustaining Equity-Driven Systems Change , featured two days of engaging plenary sessions, workshops, discussions, and networking across disciplines, geographies, ...

INCLUDES Name Change Honors U.S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
The NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub is pleased to share that the name of the INCLUDES initiative has been changed to honor the trailblazing U.S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson . Technically, the change occurred in August when the CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law. The new name is NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative and will be referred to this way on first mention, with INCLUDES or the INCLUDES Initiative on further mention. For example : NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative (the entire effort, inclusive of the funding itself, the INCLUDES-funded projects, the INCLUDES Alliances, the National Network, and the ...

Centering Diverse Contexts and Cultures in Developing Shared Measures

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
By Jon Boxerman, Sharon Nelson-Barber, Kimberly Nguyen, and Liz Rechebei The goal of the NSF INCLUDES: SEAS Islands Alliance ’s research is to understand how Indigenous islanders on several U.S. territories and affiliated islands develop science or engineering identities and experience a sense of belonging to the STEM community and to their own cultural heritage. To accomplish this, we engaged with representatives with lived and nuanced cultural expertise, and together we developed measurement instruments that more accurately and authentically represented core concepts of identity and belonging in participating communities. We hope the process can ...

NSF INCLUDES' Shared Measures Platform Showcases New Data on Participation, Partners, and the Growth and Health of the National Network

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
NSF INCLUDES' Shared Measures platform tracks data collected by the Coordination Hub. Data are provided by projects funded or co-funded by NSF INCLUDES and by Network members generally. Recently, the Coordination Hub's Shared Measures team updated several data areas on the website that provide helpful insights into the work of the INCLUDES Alliances and other Network members to broaden participation in STEM education and careers. Visit the Program Participation page to see an updated list of projects funded or co-funded by NSF INCLUDES contributing data to the shared measures platform. Visit the Students and Educators tab on the same page to ...

Cultivating Indigenous Research Communities for Leadership in Education and STEM (CIRCLES)

By Carissa Cress
Institution/Organization University of Montana Principal Investigator Aaron Thomas Co-Principal Investigators Philip Stevens Kelly Rusch Tarissa Spoonhunter Goal: The CIRCLES Alliance aims to develop and sustain a national model for centering Indigenous, culturally responsive educational approaches and practices in STEM to enhance inclusivity, increase participation, and build capacity among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) STEM educators and other professionals. The CIRCLES Alliance builds on the efforts of an existing partnership among six Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) states―Idaho, Montana, New ...

Re-Imagining STEM Equity Utilizing Postdoctoral Pathways (RISE UPP)

By Carissa Cress
Institution/Organization University of Maryland Baltimore County Principal Investigator Philip Rous Co-Principal Investigators Leslie Gonzales Robin Cresiski Kimberly van Noort Archie Holmes Goal: RISE UPP aims to increase the number of minoritized faculty in STEM. The Alliance focuses on four areas of evidence-based interventions: facilitating a formal assessment of departments, institutions, and systems and promoting inclusive policies, programs, and practices that are undergirded by more equitable norms and expectations; creating pathways, through policy and practice, that facilitate recruitment and conversion of minoritized postdocs ...

Alliance Supporting Pacific Impact through Computational Excellence (ALL-SPICE)

By Carissa Cress
Institutions/Organizations Chaminade University of Honolulu University of Texas at Austin Principal Investigators Helen Turner, Chaminade University of Honolulu Kelly Gaither, University of Texas at Austin Co-Principal Investigators From Chaminade University of Honolulu: Rylan Chong Alexander Stokes Mary Therese Hattori Goal: ALL-SPICE proposes efforts to harness the data revolution to support sustainability, economic development, and social justice in the Hawai'i-Pacific region. ALL-SPICE, led by Chaminade University of Honolulu with partners at the University of Texas at Austin , Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the University ...

National Data Science Alliance (NDSA)

By Carissa Cress
Institution/Organization Clark Atlanta University Principal Investigator Talitha Washington Co-Principal Investigators Eric Mintz Moses Garuba Sajid Hussain LaTanya Brown-Robertson Goal: The NDSA is designed to increase the number of Black people who earn data science credentials, such as undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate minors, certificates, and degrees. On average, Black people comprise about 3% of all data science professionals, demonstrating the need for an Alliance-scale effort to address this STEM-broadening participation challenge. The NDSA also aims to expand data science research that advocates for social justice ...

INCLUDES Welcomes Four New Alliances

By NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
The U.S. National Science Foundation has announced four new NSF INCLUDES Alliances, investing more than $39 million in the new cohort over five years. The 2022 cohort will join the 13 other established Alliances in advancing science and engineering by promoting and supporting accessibility, collaboration, equity, and inclusion in STEM education, careers, and research. "NSF INCLUDES develops networks that are the key to building and sustaining the kind of systemic change that is needed to move the needle on inclusivity in STEM in a substantial way," said Sylvia M. Butterfield, acting assistant director of NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources. ...

Florida International University, FL

By Pradipti Bhatta
We tried to address the non-random distribution of adverse consequences from Covid-19 for STEM faculty, especially for faculty seeking tenure and/or promotion in the relatively near future. While nearly all faculty experienced minor to major disruptions to their work lives, female faculty in general, and especially those with young children at home, experienced some of the worst disruptions, often as a function of gendered patterns around caretaking in both academic and domestic settings. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we reconfigured our suite of well-respected ADVANCE programs, originally designed to promote equity and diversity by training faculty and ...

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, NJ

By Pradipti Bhatta
The dual pandemics (COVID-19 and s tructural r acism) have significantly impacted current and future diverse faculty. To build, retain, and advance the diverse faculty of tomorrow there is a need for organizational investment for their holistic support today. The Rutgers Faculty Diversity Collaborative (FDC) is an institutional central strategy to support faculty diversity, providing resources for inclusive hiring, structure for sustained and coordinated mentoring, as well as funding opportunities to build intellectual community. One example is the Advance-Engage-Mentor for Early Career and Racial Equity (E-CARE) program , which offers tiered ...

Spelman College, GA

By Pradipti Bhatta
The pandemic has been a “psychological disruptor” for institutions of higher education, creating anxiety and uncertainty and leading to long-term effects on mental health. The disproportionately higher negative impact of COVID-19 on minority groups in the US suggest that significant efforts are needed to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic on this group. In summer 2021, in response to faculty request for more mental health support, we offered a six-part series, developed by an external expert, titled “Flourishing in Difficult Times.” This workshop, based on the principles of positive psychology, covered topics including mindfulness techniques, nutrition, ...

Texas A&M University, TX

By Pradipti Bhatta
We are trying to ensure that candidates for faculty searches and promotion are reviewed in a fair and equitable way that factors in how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted professional and personal lives. We conducted qualitative research to understand the differential impacts of COVID-19 on faculty, then incorporated insights from the research project into case studies for two recurring workshop programs for faculty hiring (STRIDE) and faculty promotion evaluation (STRIPE). We also provided training and resources for department heads and developed university-level guidelines for writing and evaluating COVID-19 impact statements. These guidelines were incorporated ...

University of California, Irvine, CA

By Pradipti Bhatta
Our goal was to prevent a vast array of pandemic-related issues from stalling or even reversing the positive progress UCI is making in recruiting and retaining underrepresented faculty in STEM. To maintain momentum in diversifying our faculty we increased the number of full-time employees (FTEs) allocated to our UCI Inclusive Excellence (IE) Supplement Program. The IE supplement provides one additional FTE from the Provost office to any authorized department-based search that identifies two final candidates who are both outstanding scholars and who have both demonstrated substantive contributions to DEI. To retain and support our outstanding and diverse faculty ...

University of Illinois Chicago, IL

By Pradipti Bhatta
Students arriving at colleges without STEM AP (Advanced Placement) credit have been systematically disadvantaged in their pursuit of engineering degrees. We m ade curricular changes to offer more flexibility, remove choke point courses (i.e., failure of those courses would delay graduation), and establish multiple pathways to complete degree requirements. We also ask faculty members to pay special attention to students' varying level of academic preparation, enacted policy changes to allow for more students pursuing minors, reducing required credits for degrees, and establish an undergraduate curricular committee to provide oversight of all degree programs ...