The culture within engineering colleges and departments has been historically quiet when considering social justice issues. Often the faculty in those departments are less concerned with social issues and are primarily focused on their disciplines and the concrete ways that they can make impacts academically and professionally in their respective arena’s. However, with the social climate of the United States shifting ever more towards a politically charged climate, and current events, particularly the protests against police brutality in recent years, faculty and students are constantly inundated with news of injustices happening in our society. The murder of George Floyd on May 25th 2020 sent shockwaves across the United States and the world. The video captured of his death shared across the globe brought everyone’s attention to the glaringly ugly problem of police brutality, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, and US election year, the conditions were just right for a social activist movement to grow to a size that no one could ignore. Emmanuel Acho spoke out, motivated by injustices seen in the George Floyd murder, initially with podcasts and then by writing his book “Uncomfortable Converstations with a Black Man” [1]. In his book he touched on various social justice issues such as: racial terminology (i.e., Black or African American), implicit biases, white privilege, cultural appropriation, stereotypes (e.g., the “angry black man”), racial slurs (particularly the n-word), systemic racism, the myth of reverse racism, the criminal justice system, the struggles faced by black families, interracial families, allyship, and anti-racism.
Students and faculty at Anonymous University felt compelled to set aside the time to meet and discuss this book in depth through the video conferencing client Zoom. In these meetings diverse facilitators were tasked with bringing the topics discussed by Acho in his book into conversation and pushing attendees of these meetings to consider those topics critically and personally. In an effort to avoid tasking attendees with reading homework to be able to participate in these discussions, the discussed chapter of the audiobook version of Acho’s book was played at the beginning of each meeting. Each audiobook chapter lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes, after which forty to forty-five minutes were left in the hour-long meetings to discuss the content of the chapter in question. Efforts by students and faculty were made to examine how some of the teachings of the book could be implemented into their lives and at Anonymous University. For broader topics, they would relate the content back to their personal lives (e.g., raising their children to be anti-racist and their experiences with racism in American and international cultures). Each meeting was recorded for posterity in the event that those conversations would be used in a paper such as this.
Each meeting had at least one facilitator whose main role was to provide discussion prompts based on the chapter and ensure that the meeting environment was safe and inclusive. Naturally, some chapters address topics that are highly personal to some participants, so it was vital that all participants felt comfortable and supported to share their thoughts and experiences. The facilitator would intervene if the conversation veered in an aggressive direction. For example, if a participant starts an argument with another participant in a non-constructive manner, e.g., arguing over the definition of ethnicity, then the facilitator will interrupt, clear the air to bring the group back to a common ground, and then continue the discussion. Otherwise, participants were allowed to steer the direction of the conversation as new avenues of discussion popped up.
These meetings were recorded with the goal of returning to these conversations and analyzing the conversations between attendees. Grounded theory will be used to first assess the most prominent themes of discussion between attendees for each meeting [2]. Attendees will be contacted to expressly ask their permission to have their words and thoughts used in this work, and upon agreement that data will begin to be processed. Select attendees will be asked to participate in focus group discussions, which will also be recorded via Zoom. These discussions will focus around the themes pulled from general discussion and will aim to dive deeper into the impact that this experience has had on them as either students or faculty members. A set of questions will be developed as prompts, but conversation is expected to evolve organically as these focus groups interact. These sessions will be scheduled for an hour, and a set of four focus groups with four participants are expected to participate for a total of sixteen total focus group participants. We hope to uncover how this experience changed the lives of the participants and present a model of how conversations such as this can promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and access activities amongst faculty and students outside of formal programs and strategic plans that are implemented at university, college, or departmental levels.
more »
« less
I enjoyed the chance to meet you and I will always remember you: Healthy Older Adults' Conversations with Misty the Robot
We conducted a 2x2 Wizard of Oz between-subject user study with sixteen healthy older adults. We investigated how to make social robots converse more naturally and reciprocally through unstructured conversation. We varied the level of interaction by changing the level of verbal and nonverbal communication the robot provided. Participants interacted with the robot for eight sessions engaging in an unstructured conversation. These conversations lasted thirty minutes to an hour. This paper will evaluate four questions from the post-interaction survey individuals completed after each session with the robot. The questions include: (i) I had fun talking to the robot; (ii) I felt I had a meaningful conversation; (iii) I was engaged the whole interaction; and (iv) I would consider the robot my friend. All participants reported they were engaged, had a meaningful conversation, and had fun during all eight sessions. Seven individuals felt the robot was their friend.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1828010
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10344263
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- HRI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 914–918
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Open Source Software (OSS) Foundations and projects are investing in creating Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives. However, little is known about contributors‘ perceptions about the usefulness and success of such initiatives. We aim to close this gap by investigating how contributors perceive the state of D&I in their community. In collaboration with the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), we surveyed 600+ OSS contributors and conducted 11 follow-up interviews. We used mixed methods to analyze our data-quantitative analysis of Likert-scale questions and qualitative analysis of open-ended survey question and the interviews to understand contributors‘ perceptions and critiques of the D&I initiative and how to improve it. Our results indicate that the ASF contributors felt that the state of D&I was still lacking, especially regarding gender, seniority, and English proficiency. Regarding the D&I initiative, some participants felt that the effort was unnecessary, while others agreed with the effort but critiqued its implementation. These findings show that D&I initiatives in OSS communities are a good start, but there is room for improvements. Our results can inspire the creation of new and the refinement of current initiatives. Open Source Software (OSS) is widely used in society (e.g., Linux, Chrome, and Firefox), and contributing to these projects helps individuals learn and showcase their skills, so much so that the history of contributions are increasingly being analyzed by hirers. However, the people who contribute to OSS are predominately men (about 90%). This means that women and other minorities lose out on job opportunities and OSS projects lose out on diversity of thought. OSS organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) promote a variety of initiatives to increase diversity and inclusion (D&I) in their projects, but they are piecemeal and little is known about contributors‘ perceptions about the usefulness and success of these initiatives. Here, we surveyed and interviewed ASF contributors to understand their perceptions about the state of D&I in the ASF and the effectiveness of existing D&I initiatives. Our findings show that individuals who are in the minority face challenges (e.g., stereotyping, lack of peer-network, and representation in decision making) and contributors‘ perceptions of the D&I initiative are a mixed bag, ranging from commending the current efforts to considering them to be “lip service”. These findings suggest that current D&I initiatives in OSS communities are a good start, but much needs be done in terms of creating new successful initiatives and refining current ones.more » « less
-
The International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2022 took place online, on 23–25 March 2022, and has attracted about 380 participants from all over the world. The goal of the meeting was to provide a meaningful and interactive scientific environment to promote discussion and collaboration and to inspire and suggest new research directions and questions. The participants created a highly interactive scientific environment even without physical face-to-face interactions. This meeting is a focal point to gain an insight into the state-of-the-art of the virus bioinformatics research landscape and to interact with researchers in the forefront as well as aspiring young scientists. The meeting featured eight invited and 18 contributed talks in eight sessions on three days, as well as 52 posters, which were presented during three virtual poster sessions. The main topics were: SARS-CoV-2, viral emergence and surveillance, virus–host interactions, viral sequence analysis, virus identification and annotation, phages, and viral diversity. This report summarizes the main research findings and highlights presented at the meeting.more » « less
-
In March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced universities across the United States to immediately stop face-to-face activities and transition to virtual instruction. While this transition was not easy for anyone, the shift to online learning was especially difficult for STEM courses, particularly engineering, which has a strong practical/laboratory component. Additionally, underrepresented students (URMs) in engineering experienced a range of difficulties during this transition. The purpose of this paper is to highlight underrepresented engineering students’ experiences as a result of COVID-19. In particular, we aim to highlight stories shared by participants who indicated a desire to share their experience with their instructor. In order to better understand these experiences, research participants were asked to share a story, using the novel data collection platform SenseMaker, based on the following prompt: Imagine you are chatting with a friend or family member about the evolving COVID-19 crisis. Tell them about something you have experienced recently as an engineering student. Conducting a SenseMaker study involves four iterative steps: 1) Initiation is the process of designing signifiers, testing, and deploying the instrument; 2) Story Collection is the process of collecting data through narratives; 3) Sense-making is the process of exploring and analyzing patterns of the collection of narratives; and 4) Response is the process of amplifying positive stories and dampening negative stories to nudge the system to an adjacent possible (Van der Merwe et al. 2019). Unlike traditional surveys or other qualitative data collection methods, SenseMaker encourages participants to think more critically about the stories they share by inviting them to make sense of their story using a series of triads and dyads. After completing their narrative, participants were asked a series of triadic, dyadic, and sentiment-based multiple-choice questions (MCQ) relevant to their story. For one MCQ, in particular, participants were required to answer was “If you could do so without fear of judgment or retaliation, who would you share this story with?” and were given the following options: 1) Family 2) Instructor 3) Peers 4) Prefer not to answer 5) Other. A third of the participants indicated that they would share their story with their instructor. Therefore, we further explored this particular question. Additionally, this paper aims to highlight this subset of students whose primary motivation for their actions were based on Necessity. High-level qualitative findings from the data show that students valued Grit and Perseverance, recent experiences influenced their Sense of Purpose, and their decisions were majorly made based on Intuition. Chi-squared tests showed that there were not any significant differences between race and the desire to share with their instructor, however, there were significant differences when factoring in gender suggesting that gender has a large impact on the complexity of navigating school during this time. Lastly, ~50% of participants reported feeling negative or extremely negative about their experiences, ~30% reported feeling neutral, and ~20% reported feeling positive or extremely positive about their experiences. In the study, a total of 500 micro-narratives from underrepresented engineering students were collected from June – July 2020. Undergraduate and graduate students were recruited for participation through the researchers’ personal networks, social media, and through organizations like NSBE. Participants had the option to indicate who is able to read their stories 1) Everyone 2) Researchers Only, or 3) No one. This work presents qualitative stories of those who granted permission for everyone to read.more » « less
-
Background: In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have scrambled to collect and analyze SARS-CoV-2 genomic data to inform public health responses to COVID-19 in real-time. Open-source phylogenetic and data visualization platforms for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 genomic epidemiology have rapidly gained popularity for their ability to illuminate spatial-temporal transmission patterns worldwide. However, the utility of such tools to inform public health decision-making for COVID-19 in real-time remains to be explored. Objective: The objective of this study was to convene experts in public health, infectious diseases, virology, and bioinformatics – many of whom were actively engaged in the COVID-19 response at the time of their participation – to discuss the application of phylodynamic tools to inform pandemic responses. Methods: A series of four virtual focus group discussions were hosted between June 2020 and June 2021, covering the pre- and post-variant and vaccination eras of the COVID-19 crisis. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim, and an iterative, thematic qualitative framework was used for analysis. Results: Of the 41 individuals invited, 23 total participants (56.1%) agreed to participate. Across the four focus group sessions, 15 (65%) of the participants were female, 17 (74%) were white, and 5 (22%) were black. Participants were described as molecular epidemiologists (ME, n=9), clinician-researchers (n=3), infectious disease experts (ID, n=4), and public health professionals (PH) at the local (n=4), state (n=2), and federal (n=1) levels. Collectively, participants felt that successful uptake of phylodynamic tools relies on the strength of academic-public health partnerships. They called for interoperability standards in sequence data sharing and cited many resource issues that must be addressed, including timeliness and cost, in addition to improving issues related to sampling bias and the translation of phylodynamic findings into public health action. Conclusions: This was the first qualitative study to characterize the perspectives of key experts regarding the utility of phylodynamic tools for the public health response to COVID-19. The focus group participants identified key areas for improvement of existing and future phylogenetic and data visualization platforms for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 genomic epidemiology. This information is critical to both policymakers and developers as they consider how to handle existing and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants during the ongoing crisis.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
