HSI Institutional Transformation Project Voces (Voices for Organizing Change in Educational Systems)

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With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 3 project aims to transform university practices by integrating student-generated strategies and actions into faculty professional development and university operations, thus, improving student learning and graduation success across all STEM disciplines. Students at HSIs bring a wealth of experiences and come through numerous educational pathways. However, the richness of their experiences is generally an underutilized resource and not integrated into institutional decisions. This project will utilize students' experiences to sustainably improve Florida International University's (FIU) student success through the establishment of a STEM Voceros program, creation of faculty professional development with students as partners, and institution practices and policies that integrate students' perspectives. The expected outcomes of this work include new student-led educational improvement models that can be adapted and implemented at HSIs across the nation and have the potential to transform educational systems to better serve students' needs.The specific aims of the project include creating a resilient institutional change movement that advances STEM opportunities for FIU's historically underrepresented student body. Central to the project is the establishment of the STEM Voceros program that will develop and deploy undergraduates across all STEM disciplines to improve instructional practice and policies systemically at the institution. STEM Voceros (literally, the one that speaks on behalf of others) will be students engaged in faculty professional development, through multiple organized workshops as well as deployed in STEM classrooms, co-facilitating and co-designing evidence-based curriculum that engages our highly diverse student body and leads to improved faculty practice and student outcomes. Voceros will be engaged in the project’s research enterprise to examine institution-level outcomes as well as bring their student-focused perspective to guide the research. The Voceros’ instructional and research roles will intentionally prepare them for STEM policy engagement, their third major role. They will 1) conduct STEM degree program reviews across STEM departments to promote student needs in program design, 2) establish a Student ComPASS, a yearly accountability review to promote the educational outcomes of all students, and 3) establish a student steering committee to guide the Voces project. This multi-layered design will integrate our diverse STEM students’ voice and experiences throughout the instructional practices, research mission and institutional policies and practices. Faculty and university leadership will become reliant on student voice and create the opportunity to re-envision the decision-making norms and thereby establish sustained systemic change at FIU. Voces will generate new knowledge on the effectiveness of student-led institutional change models, as well as increase our understanding of its impact on students' agency, faculty practices, and institutional structures and processes at an HSI. The strategies and outcomes will be disseminated locally to partner institutions as well as nationally through established networks and professional meetings. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.