EAGER: Collaborative Research: Networking Faculty Seeds for Collective Change in the Geosciences

私人投资促进机构计划制定一项专业发展课程，高度适应个人特定的机构背景。他们寻求从10所不同的大学招聘10名种子多样性研究员，然后这些研究员将另外两名合作伙伴加入团队。然后，每个三人小组将确定阻碍其特定机构招聘、留住和纳入地球科学领域不同教职员工和学生的能力的把关机制。拟议的课程将实施和研究社交网络分析的创新使用，作为参与者识别潜在合作者的工具，以便他们能够共同改变部门的信念和行为。PIS还将开发和研究三个新的混合现实模拟，将人工智能与人类对话直觉相结合，教参与者如何管理冲突，同时倡导大学和院系程序的系统性变化。在GOLD：Geodes项目试点工作的基础上，这些新的模拟将超越个人行为，更多地转向协调和利用社交网络来实现制度变革。PI提议的职业发展课程包括以下两项创新：1.帮助参与者识别和分析他们的社交网络，以选择另外两个关键个人，与他们合作改变部门的集体行为。在试点的Geodes项目中，PI认识到，改变一个部门的集体行为比改变个人行为和信仰更沉重。2.利用创新的混合现实模拟，将人工智能与人类的对话直觉相结合，教参与者如何管理冲突，同时倡导大学和院系程序的系统性变化。该项目的创新基于这样一个想法，即改变一个部门内许多人的行为需要基于坚实的理论基础的强有力的干预，这些基础已经显示出有希望的结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The PIs plan to create a professional development curriculum that is highly tailorable to an individual's particular institutional context. They seek to recruit 10 Seeding Diversity Fellows from 10 different universities who will then bring on board another two partners to join the team. Each team of three will then identify gatekeeping mechanisms that impede the ability of their particular institution to recruit, retain, and include diverse faculty and students in the geosciences. The proposed curriculum will implement and research an innovative use of social network analysis as a tool for participants to identify potential collaborators so that, together, they can collectively change departmental beliefs and behaviors. The PIs will also develop and research three, new, mixed-reality simulations that combine artificial intelligence with human conversational intuition to teach participants how to manage conflicts while advocating for systemic changes in university and departmental procedures. Building off of the work from the pilot GOLD:GeoDES project, these new simulations will extend beyond individual actions and move more toward coordinating and leveraging social networks to effect institutional change.The PI's proposed professional development curriculum includes the following two innovations: 1. Helping participants to identify and analyze their social networks to select two additional key individuals with whom to collaborate to change collective behaviors in a department. In the pilot GeoDES project, the PIs recognized that changing collective behaviors of a department is a heavier lift than changing individual behaviors and beliefs. 2. Making use of innovative mixed-reality simulations that combine artificial intelligence with human conversational intuition to teach participants how to manage conflicts while advocating for systemic changes in university and departmental procedures. The project's innovation rests on the idea that changing the behavior of many people within a department requires a robust intervention grounded in strong theoretical foundations that have shown promising results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.