RCN-UBE-Incubator: Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research

环境和生物学教育和研究（EMBER）RCN-UBE孵化器项目旨在通过利用来自众多相关学科（包括生物学，教育学，心理学和社会学）的感兴趣的教育工作者的独特见解和合作，制定创新措施，以增加科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）劳动力的保留和多样性。解决STEM学生保留问题对于避免不断增长的STEM经济所需的合格工人的预计赤字至关重要。美国人口和劳动力正变得越来越多样化，但STEM领域缺乏多样性的现象顽固存在。全国范围内促进STEM教育和解决STEM劳动力预计赤字的努力取得了好坏参半的结果。与其他STEM学科一样，进入生物学专业的本科生中约有一半完成了学位。解决保留和多样性问题将需要创新的解决方案，这些解决方案将利用包括心理学，社会学，教育和STEM在内的各个领域的贡献。该项目的更广泛的影响在于形成一个网络，汇集了来自这些领域的专家，研究当前生物STEM管道的环境，并建立和评估沿着这一职业轨迹的关键点的包容性基准。EMBER研究协调网络的活动包括组织和建立一个专家合作网络，举办研讨会，开发网站，发布研讨会会议中产生的见解，并起草一份完整的研究协调网络-本科生生物学教育提案。该项目的重点将是保留在生物学学位课程，但新的指标和范式开发的EBER合作者预计将广泛适用于其他STEM学科和以STEM为基础的企业。该项目是由生物科学理事会和教育和人力资源理事会（EHR）共同资助，本科教育司作为他们努力解决的一部分，在本科生物学教育的愿景和变化所带来的挑战：行动呼吁http：//visionandchange/finalreport/。该项目也由EHR董事会人力资源开发司（HBCU UP）共同资助。

The Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research (EMBER) RCN-UBE Incubator Project seeks to generate innovative measures to increase retention and diversity in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce by capitalizing on the unique insights and collaboration of interested educators from a multitude of relevant disciplines including biology, education, psychology and sociology. Addressing STEM student retention is crucial to avoid the projected deficit in qualified workers required for a growing STEM-based economy. The US population and workforce are becoming increasingly diverse yet a lack of diversity in STEM fields is stubbornly persistent. Nationwide efforts to boost education in STEM and address the projected deficits in the STEM workforce have had mixed results. Like other STEM disciplines, approximately half of undergraduate students that enter biology majors complete their degrees. Addressing retention and diversity will require innovative solutions that capitalize on the contributions from a variety of fields including psychology, sociology, education and STEM. The broader impacts of the project lie in forming a network that brings together experts from these fields to study the environment of the current biology STEM pipeline, and establish and assess benchmarks for inclusivity at critical points along this career trajectory. The activities of the EMBER Research Coordination Network include organizing and building a collaborating network of experts by hosting a workshop, developing a website, publishing insights generated in the workshop session, and drafting a full Research Coordination Network-Undergraduate Biology Education proposal. The focus of the project will be on retention in biology degree programs but new metrics and paradigms developed by EMBER collaborators are expected to be broadly applicable to other STEM disciplines and to STEM-based businesses.This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action http://visionandchange/finalreport/. This project is also co-funded by the Division of Human Resources Development (HBCU UP) in the EHR directorate.