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1. Persistence Priorities and Financial Servingness in an Emerging HSI

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343220  

   Hug, Sarah (October 2023, IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   As the demographics in the United States college-going population continue to shift, the number of HSIs grows annually, yet research in higher education indicates a difference between enrolling Hispanic students in great numbers and serving the Hispanic/LatinX population [1,2] Servingness is embodied in structures and practices that constitute HSIs and is manifested in the acts of institutional agents who interpret policy, advocate for students, and access resources on behalf of students. This paper describes the findings from an initial case study of a public US East Coast Emerging Hispanic Serving Institution recently funded by the National Science Foundation to provide scholarships for high-achieving students with great financial need. To understand the financial barriers students face in attending college in a post-pandemic context, the first author interviewed key stakeholders at EAST STEM University. The research question driving the study was: How is EAST STEM changing its infrastructure to develop diverse support structures that serve students? Data for this pilot case study were collected from unstructured interviews with the lead faculty member of the grant in the computer science department, document analysis of institutional data (e.g., contextual data from the US Department of Education, publicly available information from Excellencia in Education, institutional profile data from the Institute of Educational Statistics), and from formal interviews with key stakeholders across the university. Interviews were transcribed and coded using emerging themes with Dedoose software. The staff interviewed in this study span five administrative offices and academic departments. Findings from this case suggest the institutional goals of promoting diversity and increasing persistence were values aligned with the acts of servingness utilized at East STEM University to advocate holistically for student needs [3]. Interviews with institutional agents indicate two ways the institution supported student progression through the major-through human resource allocation and through financial prioritization for equity. Within this institutional context, institutional agents enacted servingness through their emphasis on equity and persistence priorities, with, in some cases, a critical lens supportive of student success[4]. Key to their efforts in promoting persistence for students were three actions-creating space for one-on-one engagement with students, advocating on students' behalf across multiple administrative offices, and adapting and reinterpreting policies to support continued student enrollment. This study illustrates how institutional agents aligned serving with a key institutional initiative and how that alignment created space for innovation in meeting undergraduate students' financial needs. 

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2. Mobilizing Resources in a Community of Practice: How Academic Change Agents Work Toward Equity in their Change Projects

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--43936  

   Güler, S.; Litzler, E.; Margherio, C.; Williams, J.M.; Andrijcic, E.; Mohan, S. (June 2023, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   Transforming academic organizations to be more equitable and inclusive requires a range of change agents working together and engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Central to this DEI work is learning how to create change. Yet, change agents do not always know at the outset what resources are necessary to enact change; they often acquire the necessary resources and skills over time. This research paper investigates how change agents participating in a community of practice (CoP) across academic institutions learn about and mobilize resources to transform engineering education. This analysis of resource mobilization mechanisms comes from research with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant recipient teams. To date, 26 teams have been funded through the RED mechanism to create revolutionary organizational and cultural changes within their departments with the goal of improving equity, inclusion, and educational outcomes. Projects vary in how they define and the degree to which they focus on equity. We find that resource mobilization practices in the CoP center and strengthen DEI values in two main ways. Firstly, participants learn about and gain access to resources that are explicitly DEIrelated: they mobilize resources to advance equity at the institutional level as an outcome of the projects and collaborate on additional projects to embed DEI into the process of change-making itself, starting from the initial stages of writing a proposal. Secondly, the way participants engage with each other, and approach change goals puts equity and inclusion into practice: participants identify and tackle structural barriers to change through DEI-aligned behaviors, from addressing how institutional circumstances create resistance to DEI, to developing a shared vision for systemic change that is inclusive and collaborative. 

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3. Equity in the Who, How and What of Computer Science Education: K12 School District Conceptualizations of Equity in ‘CS for All’ Initiatives

   https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT46404.2019.8985901  

   Santo, Rafi; DeLyser, Leigh Ann; Ahn, June; Pellicone, Anthony; Aguiar, Julia; Wortel-London, Stephanie (February 2019, 2019 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing and Technology (RESPECT))

   null (Ed.)

   Equity is arguably an agreed upon value within the Computer Science education (CSed) community, and perhaps even more so within efforts to universalize access to CSed within K12 settings through emerging `CS for All' initiatives. However, stakeholders often mean different things when referring to equity, with important implications for what CS teaching and learning looks like in schools. In this paper, we explore the question of how K12 school district actors' conceptualizations of equity manifest within their planning and implementation of district-wide CSed initiatives. Based on a research-practice partnership aimed at supporting and researching district-wide CSed initiatives, data presented - interviews with district faculty, district planning documents, meeting transcripts and field observations - were drawn from five participating school districts as they made decisions and enacted activities over 11 months in areas including vision-setting, curriculum, professional development, leadership efforts and use of formative data about implementation. Analyzing these data through equity frameworks found in CSed literature, we highlight three distinct but interconnected ways that district actors conceptualized equity within their CSed initiatives: (1) equity in who Computer Science is for, (2) equity in how Computer Science is taught, and (3) equity in what Computer Science is taught. Data show that these varied conceptualizations resulted in different kinds of decisions about CSed in districts. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of their relevance to equity-oriented CS education researchers, and what lessons they hold for policy-makers and education leaders engaged in their own efforts to support equitable computer science education. 

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4. Institutional Mentoring to Incite a Revolution through NSF’s RED Program

   Lord, S.; Camacho, M.; Kellam, N.; William, J. (June 2017, Proceedings of the 2017 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition)

   A recent initiative from the National Science Foundation (NSF), IUSE/PFE: REvolutionizing engineering and computer science Departments (RED), is serving as a catalyst to encourage widespread, revolutionary, and radical change in engineering and computer science departments across the nation. After two years and 13 RED awards being funded, there is little diversity in the types of institutions—one is private, two are undergraduate-focused, and two are Hispanic-serving institutions. To address this lack of institutional diversity in funded RED projects, previous awardees of the program utilized a framework developed by the team, termed institutional mentoring, to develop a series of webinars aimed at helping diverse institutions envision a revolutionary idea for radically changing their program, assembling a team capable of realizing this vision, and using change strategies to help increase the likelihood of success and lasting change. This team deliberately reached out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and minority-serving institutions in an attempt to make more diverse institutions aware of this opportunity, with the hopes of increasing submissions of proposals to the RED program and the quality and likelihood of success for these proposals. In this paper, we describe the institutional mentoring framework, the process used in developing the seminars, and a synopsis of the sessions that made up the webinar. 

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5. Identifying Barriers and Opportunities for Broadening Computing Participation among Underrepresented High School Students in California

   Scott, A; Flapan, J; McAlear, F; Koshy, S; Martin, A (April 2019, Meeting of the American Education Research Association)

   As efforts to broaden participation in computing and provide equitable computer science education to all students increase across the country, within states, and within cities and districts, this research aims to investigate whether existing efforts have increased equity. This research analyzes three years of computer science access, enrollment, and success data across the state of California to: (a) examine whether racial, gender, and socioeconomic equity in CS access, enrollment and success has improved; (b) identify persistent barriers to racial, gender and socioeconomic equity, and (c) inform statewide strategies to ensure equity in computer science across California. Findings indicate despite several promising trends, including an increase in CS access and participation across California, racial, gender and SES gaps remain in access to CS courses, participation, and success. Additional statewide policies and practices are needed to ensure equity in CS across California. 

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