Increasing the Effectiveness of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion-Focused Institutional Change Teams through a Community of Transformation

该项目旨在通过提高组织变革努力的有效性来服务于国家利益，以便大学科学和工程项目能够吸引和留住来自不同和微区化社区的学生和教师，为更具创新性和代表性的劳动力做出贡献。高等教育的变革努力具有挑战性，部分原因是教职员工没有接受过组织变革方面的培训，部分原因是有效的变革需要教授以外的不同利益相关者的参与。因此，各机构可能继续使用不能有效解决参与差距的政策和做法，例如针对有色人种学生、妇女和残疾人的政策和做法。以前关于高等教育组织变革的研究强调了社会关系对于教职员工和其他利益相关者的重要性，使他们能够对自己的信念和实践做出重大改变。本着这一精神，该项目将创建一个跨机构的变革社区(COT)，以支持大学变革推动者，他们正在努力在自己的部门和机构中进行以正义、公平、多样性和包容性(绝地)为重点的变革。这种方法特别适合以绝地为中心的组织变革，这不仅需要个人采用新的做法，而且还需要改变机构结构和做法。通过社区建设和故事编排的创新方法，该项目旨在帮助COT成员做出以绝地为中心的重大机构变革努力，相互学习彼此的经验，并学习有效的变革战略，走向更公正的未来。这项工作旨在促进对COTS如何帮助面向绝地的机构变革努力蓬勃发展的理解。该项目计划召集一个跨机构的绝地变革代理人工程学COT。通过虚拟和面对面的活动，参与者将提高他们在其机构实施变革的韧性和技能，建立社区并作为变革推动者相互支持，并增加他们的个人和集体机构以创造组织变革。该项目希望通过将专业发展整合到COT中，培养成员将相互学习的关系，并评估跨机构COT如何提高变革推动者的能力，以改进他们自己的部门和机构系统，以扩大对STEM的参与并推动绝地成果，从而为改善教师的变革机构提供关键见解。这些关键的见解将通过对COT参与者及其促进变革的努力的研究来形成。研究小组将使用叙事和话语方法来分析COT活动和COT成员的调查、访谈和焦点小组。NSF IUSE：EDU计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过其机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区改造和改进STEM教育的努力。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 project aims to serve the national interest by increasing the effectiveness of organizational change efforts, so that university science and engineering programs are able to attract and retain students and faculty from diverse and minoritized communities, contributing to a more innovative and representative workforce. Change efforts in higher education are challenging, in part because faculty have not received training in organizational change, and in part because effective change needs involvement from diverse stakeholders beyond the professoriate. As a consequence, institutions may continue to use policies and practices that do not effectively address gaps in participation, such as for students of color, women, and people with disabilities. Previous research on organizational change in higher education highlights the importance of social relationships for equipping faculty and other stakeholders to make significant changes to their beliefs and practices. In that vein this project will create a cross-institutional Community of Transformation (CoT) to support university change agents who are working to make changes focused on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in their own departments and institutions. This approach is a particularly good match for JEDI-centered organizational change, which requires not only individual adoption of new practices, but also transformation of institutional structures and practices. Through an innovative approach to community building and storycrafting, the project intends to help CoT members make significant JEDI-centered institutional change efforts, learn from one another’s experiences, and learn effective change strategies towards a more just future. This work aims to advance understanding of how CoTs can help JEDI-oriented institutional change efforts thrive.This project plans to convene a cross-institutional CoT of JEDI change agents in engineering. Through both virtual and in-person events, participants will increase their resilience and skills in enacting change at their institutions, build community and co-support for each other as change agents, and increase their individual and collective agency to create organizational change. This project hopes to provide key insights into improving faculty’s change agency by integrating professional development into the CoT, fostering relationships through which members will learn from each other, and evaluating how a cross-institutional CoT can improve change agents’ capacity to improve their own departmental and institutional systems to broaden participation in STEM and advance JEDI outcomes. These key insights will be developed through research on the CoT participants and their efforts to promote change. The research team will use narrative and discourse methods to analyze CoT activities and surveys, interviews, and focus groups with CoT members. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.