RCN-UBE: Midwest and Great Plains PULSE Network - Building Institutional Capacity for Inclusive Excellence in Undergraduate Biology Education

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The Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE) originated as an initiative launched in 2012 by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS/NIH) as an effort to stimulate life science departments to undertake the type of transformative changes recommended in the Vision and Change report. Department leaders from two-year colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive universities and research universities were selected as PULSE Leadership Fellows. Such improvements in how biology is taught at all types of undergraduate institutions are expected to enhance students' understanding of core concepts in the life sciences, increase retention rates for students in the life sciences, and improve preparation for all students to be more curious and scientifically literate citizens. This project will establish an educational network across twelve states in the Great Plains and Midwest focused on spurring the organizational, department-level change needed for heightening alignment of undergraduate life sciences programs with evidence-based practices outlined in Vision and Change. In so doing, the network will increase the number of persons equipped with the scientific and technical skills to meet the nation's need for a technically skilled workforce.The intellectual merit of this projects rests on two aims of the Great Plains and Midwest PULSE network to: 1) expand the network membership to reach a critical mass of effective change leaders who can motivate and guide colleagues at their home institutions toward curricular, pedagogical, and organizational transformation; and 2) coordinate, standardize, and synthesize evaluation efforts that ask whether the change processes initiated and led by network members support departmental adoption of evidence-based practices and the recommendations in Vision and Change. The major activities will involve workshops to support the growth of communities of practice. Additional activities include formative and summative evaluation of the network, coupled with systems analysis to comprehend the structure and dynamics of change within the complex systems of STEM higher education. Through these activities, the network will: (i) empower faculty members in the process of building institutional capacity for inclusive excellence in undergraduate education; (ii) deepen participants' understanding of strategies for leading organizational change and provide information, opportunities for collaboration, and mutual support across the network; and (iii) contribute to knowledge on effective ways to promote organizational change in undergraduate STEM education. Network activities will reach approximately 100 institutions, serving approximately 70,000 students annually in introductory biology courses. This project directly impacts community colleges as almost 50% of the undergraduate students in the U.S. attend two-year degree granting institutions.This project is funded jointly by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education in support of efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/.