BPE Track 3 Inclusive Mentoring Hub: Raices Institute for Transformative Advocacy (RITA)

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(Public Law 117-2)。NSF-BPE Track 3：包容性指导中心项目名为Raíce Institute for Transformative Advocacy(RITA)，将为工程特遣队教员(兼职、兼职和非终身教职Track)提供装备，他们是黑人、土著、各种相交身份的有色人种(BIPOCx)，他们将形成自己的变革性草根倡导战略，以在其聘用的学术机构的晋升途径和工作条件方面获得公平。项目目标围绕：发展可信的导师/学员关系，学习/制定变革性的个人/集体倡导计划，以及提高对BIPOCx工程学临时教员晋升和/或工作条件的认识。由于对临时教职员工缺乏关注，这一群体的研究和支持严重不足。仅在美国，就有约150万名教员受雇于高等教育，其中超过46%是临时教职员工，其中大多数是边缘群体，这造成了错失了扩大参与的机会。为了扩大参与，我们的国家需要利用一个多样化和包容性的科学和工程企业来确保未来的经济、国家安全和就业。该项目兼顾了这一国家需求的方方面面。临时教员通常服务于基础本科课程和大班级，间接影响学生的教育体验。然而，对不稳定和非永久性临时劳动力的持续压力，以及有限的专业发展、晋升机会和福利，对高等教育产生了负面影响。文献表明，临时教职员工很难对学生实施循证教学和辅导，因为他们要么在多个机构的多门课程之间忙碌以维持收支平衡，要么在很少或根本没有支持的情况下处理多种服务职责，以全面帮助学生。RITA是对工程学临时教员的现实和情况进行的早期研究之一，目的是产生知识，为机构行动提供建议和战略以支持这些教员，并为这些教员提供公平的工作条件。RITA将开发一个草根发起的、知识生成的、包容性的指导中心，在这里，从BIPOCx工程学临时教师那里获得的第一手经验信息将战略性地与他们所在机构的关键决策者共享。虽然并非所有途径都能带来晋升，但我们认为，所有临时教职员工都需要更好的工作条件。这个项目是佛罗里达大学(一个拉美裔新兴机构)、弗吉尼亚理工大学(一个以白人为主的机构)和莫尔豪斯学院(一个历史上的黑人学院和大学)之间的合作项目。这些机构将创造一系列专业发展和指导机会，以帮助两批临时工程学教师(阶段1-12教师和阶段2-12教师)创建个人和集体倡导计划，以及导师、评估员和专业发展专家。通过一种称为参与式行动研究(PAR)的实施研究方法，RITA要回答的关键研究问题是：如何在基层指导BIPOCx工程学临时教员朝着变革性的倡导计划前进，以获得晋升和/或公平的工作条件？PAR将需要BIPOCx临时教员和他们的导师之间进行一系列合作规划、行动和反思活动，以在安全的空间和环境中设计和制定倡导计划。将使用现象学启发的方法收集和分析日记、日志和其他反思材料。编码和去识别的信息将产生多种做法、建议和战略，这些做法、建议和战略将被整合到一个在线存储库中，并通过播客分享，以供广泛传播。这项工作将显著：(1)向研究不足的学者介绍如何支持这些工程学临时教员；以及(2)通过提高对BIPOCx工程学临时教职员工晋升和/或工作条件的认识，为改变这些教职员工发展轨迹的行动议程奠定基础。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。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This NSF-BPE Track 3: Inclusive Mentoring Hub project, called Raíces Institute for Transformative Advocacy (RITA) will equip engineering contingent faculty (adjuncts, part-timers, and non-tenure track), who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color of all intersecting identities (BIPOCx), to form their own transformative grassroots advocacy strategies for attaining equity in promotion pathways and working conditions at their hiring academic institutions. Project objectives center around: developing authentic mentor/mentee relationships, learning/developing transformative individual/collective advocacy plans, and raising awareness for the promotion and/or working conditions of BIPOCx contingent faculty in engineering. Due to the scant attention paid to contingent faculty, this population is severely understudied and undersupported. In the United States alone, there are ~1.5 million faculty employed in higher education out of which over 46% are contingent, the majority composed of marginalized groups, creating a missed opportunity to broaden participation. To broaden participation, our nation needs to leverage a diverse and inclusive science and engineering enterprise to secure economic, national security, and jobs of the future. This project attends to all aspects of this national need. Contingent faculty typically serve fundamental undergraduate courses and large class sizes, indirectly impacting the educational experience of students. Yet, continual stresses of an unstable and non-permanent contingent workforce with limited professional development, promotion opportunities, and benefits, negatively affects higher education. Literature suggests that contingent faculty struggle with implementing evidence-based teaching and mentoring to students because they are either juggling multiple courses in multiple institutions to ‘make ends meet’ or handle multiple service responsibilities with little-to-no support to assist students fully. RITA serves as one of the early studies into the realities and circumstances of contingent faculty in engineering with the aim to generate knowledge, provide recommendations and strategies for institutional action to support, and provide equitable working conditions for these faculty. This project will, by extension benefit numerous undergraduate engineering students who are enrolled in many of these contingent faculty-led courses.RITA will develop a grassroots-initiated, knowledge-generating, inclusive mentoring hub where first-hand, experiential information acquired from the BIPOCx contingent faculty in engineering will be strategically shared with key decision-makers at their institutions. While not all paths lead to promotion, we argue that all contingent faculty need better working conditions. This project is a partnership between the University of Florida (a Hispanic-Emerging Institution), Virginia Tech (a Predominantly White Institution), and Morehouse College (a Historically Black College and University). These institutions will create a series of professional development and mentoring opportunities to assist two cohorts of contingent engineering faculty (Phase 1- 12 faculty and Phase 2- 12 faculty) to create individual and collective advocacy plans alongside a repertoire of mentors, evaluators, and professional development experts. Through an implementation research methodology called participatory action research (PAR), RITA’s key research question to be answered is: How can BIPOCx contingent faculty in engineering be mentored, at the grassroots, towards transformative advocacy plans for attaining promotion and/or equitable working conditions? PAR will require a series of collaborative planning, acting, and reflection activities between the BIPOCx contingent faculty and their mentors to design and enact advocacy plans in a safe space and environment. Journals, logbooks, and other reflective materials will be collected and analyzed using phenomenographically-inspired approaches. The coded and de-identified information will yield multiple practices, recommendations, and strategies that will be assembled into an Online Repository and shared via podcasts for widespread dissemination. This work will significantly: (1) inform the understudied scholarship on how to support these contingent faculty in engineering; and (2) lay the foundation for an action agenda that alters the trajectory of these faculty by raising awareness for the promotion and/or working conditions of BIPOCx contingent faculty in engineering.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.