Conference: A Three-Part Series to Envision & Enact an Inclusive & Diverse STEM Professoriate

公立和赠与土地大学协会(APLU)最近发表的研究报告证明了STEM中教师、博士后学者和来自代表性不足群体的研究生面临的经验和障碍，特别是在通往教授之路的后期阶段。在全国范围内，只有循序渐进的变革，支持学院多样性、公平和包容性取得成功的有效、持久的体制和系统变革做法尚未确定和实施。系统性的变革努力需要多个不同利益攸关方的投入，确保创造变革的责任由更大的集体分担，特别是在服务于扩大对STEM的参与方面。这种变化还需要以不同的方式思考棘手的问题，以代表人数不足的群体的STEM教员的经验为中心，并为当前的实践创造新的方法。APLU将召开三次为期半天的虚拟会议，以解决STEM教师从代表性不足的群体中获得成功的三个系统性障碍：(1)招聘和聘用，(2)教师评估，(3)机构领导力。召集会议将促使机构领导人、教育研究人员、学科学会、政策制定者和慈善捐赠者设想新的实践和研究战略。这一虚拟会议系列旨在吸引学术界广泛的利益相关者，以解决看似棘手的问题，即STEM教员从代表性不足的群体中增加到全系统，并使用包容性和公平知情的做法。建立一个由改革推动者和学者组成的社区，他们围绕一个共同的改革议程共同制定和联合起来，这将有助于创造动力，并确保支持向前推进改革。每一次半天的会议都将采用设计思维的方法，集中教职员工的经验和观点，特别是那些在STEM历史上代表性不足的教职员工。由此产生的成果和参与或来自机构、资助者、学科和其他组织的代表将通过确定新的实施战略和研究领域来改进STEM，以实现变革的成功。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。

Recent work published by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) documents evidence of the experiences and barriers facing faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students from underrepresented groups in STEM, especially in the later stages of the pathways to the professoriate. Nationally there have been only incremental changes, and effective, lasting institutional and systemic transformation practices to support the success of diversity, equity and inclusion in the academy have yet to be identified and implemented. Systemic transformation efforts require the input of multiple and varied stakeholders, ensuring that the responsibility for creating change is shared by the larger collective, especially in service of broadening participation in STEM. Such change also requires thinking in different ways about intractable problems, centering the experiences of STEM faculty from underrepresented groups, and creating new approaches to current practices. APLU will convene three half-day virtual meetings to address three systemic barriers to success for STEM faculty from underrepresented groups: (1) recruitment and hiring, (2) faculty evaluation, and (3) institutional leadership. The convenings will engage institutional leaders, educational researchers, disciplinary societies, policymakers, and philanthropic funders to envision new practice and research strategies.This virtual conference series is designed to engage a broad number of stakeholders in academia to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of a system-wide increase of STEM faculty from underrepresented groups and the use of inclusive and equity-informed practices. Developing a community of change agents and scholars who have co-developed and coalesced around a common agenda for change will help to create momentum and ensure that change is supported moving forward. Each half-day convening will be facilitated using a design-thinking approach that centers the experiences and perspectives of faculty, especially those faculty historically underrepresented in STEM. The resulting deliverables and engagement or representatives from institutions, funders, disciplines, and other organizations will serve as a launch pad for improving STEM by identifying new strategies for implementation and areas for research to build upon prior successes in effecting change.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.