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1. Language Across the Disciplines

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-022421-070340  

   Charity Hudley, Anne H.; Clemons, Aris M.; Villarreal, Dan (January 2023, Annual Review of Linguistics)

   This article reviews the study of language across disciplines. We focus on epistemological and methodological frameworks in the study of language broadly within linguistics departments and across disciplinary areas that concentrates on the organizational structure across departments, degree programs, organizations, and professions. We then emphasize emerging transdisciplinary trends in the study of language and communication. We highlight pressing research required to recenter humans and the human communicative experience. We use examples from lexical and morphological investigations to illustrate the complexity and relevance of the study of language across areas and paradigms. 

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2. Cultivating change: an evaluation of departmental readiness for faculty diversification

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1553580  

   Carter-Veale, Wendy Y; Cresiski, Robin H; Sharp, Gwen; Lankford, Jordan D; Ugarte, Fadel (February 2025, Frontiers in Education)

   Rana, Karan Singh (Ed.)

   Despite the increasing number of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earning PhDs and the substantial investment in diversity initiatives within higher education, the relative lack of diversity among faculty in tenure-track positions reveals a persistent systemic challenge. This study used an adaptation of the Community Readiness Tool to evaluate readiness for faculty diversification efforts in five biomedical departments. Interviews with 31 key informants were transcribed and coded manually and using NVIVO 12 in order to assign scores to each department in the six domains of readiness. The results revealed no meaningful differences in overall scores across institutional types, but did show differences within specific domains of readiness. These findings indicate that readiness is multi-faceted and academic departments can benefit by identifying priority areas in need of additional faculty buy-in and resources to enhance the success of diversification efforts. 

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3. Assessing departmental readiness to support minoritized faculty

   https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20494  

   Carter‐Veale, Wendy Y; Cresiski, Robin H; Sharp, Gwen; Lankford, Jordan D; Ugarte, Fadel (March 2024, New Directions for Higher Education)

   Kinzie, Jillian L; Wolf-Wendel, Lisa (Ed.)

   Though increasing numbers of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earn PhDs and national initiatives focus on faculty diversity, challenges persist in recruiting, hiring, and retaining REM faculty. While a pervasive issue nationally, the literature predominantly focuses on faculty diversity at research‐intensive institutions. This exploratory case study pilots a readiness instrument to evaluate the commitment and willingness of a biomedical department at a primarily undergraduate institution to embrace faculty diversity before initiating a postdoctoral faculty conversion program. We introduce the Community Readiness Model (CRM) into an academic context, offering academic departments a robust framework and tool to evaluate readiness and capacity to recruit, retain, and support REM faculty. Practical Takeaways: Academic departments can be conceived of as a type of community. The adapted Department Readiness Tool can be a valuable method of evaluating a department's readiness to support the success of underrepresented minority faculty. Departments may score highly on some areas of readiness but relatively low on others, which provides insight into where time and resources should be invested to improve readiness. 

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4. How the Demographic Composition of Academic Science and Engineering Departments Influences Workplace Culture, Faculty Experience, and Retention Risk

   Griffith, Eric. E; Dasgupta, Nilanjana (January 2018, Social sciences)

   Although on average women are underrepresented in academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments at universities, an under appreciated fact is that women’s representation varies widely across STEM disciplines. Past research is fairly silent on how local variations in gender composition impact faculty experiences. This study fills that gap. A survey of STEM departments at a large research university finds that women faculty in STEM are less professionally satisfied than male colleagues only if they are housed in departments where women are a small numeric minority. Gender differences in satisfaction are largest in departments with less than 25% women, smaller in departments with 25–35% women, and nonexistent in departments approaching 50% women. Gender differences in professional satisfaction in gender-unbalanced departments are mediated by women’s perception that their department’s climate is uncollegial, faculty governance is non-transparent, and gender relations are inequitable. Unfavorable department climates also predict retention risk for women in departments with few women, but not in departments closer to gender parity. Finally, faculty who find within-department mentors to be useful are more likely to have a favorable view of their department’s climate, which consequently predicts more professional satisfaction. Faculty gender and gender composition does not moderate these findings, suggesting that mentoring is equally effective for all faculty. Keywords: gender; STEM; climate; retention; faculty 

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5. The PULSE Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Rubric: a Tool To Help Assess Departmental DEI Efforts

   https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00057-22  

   Brancaccio-Taras, Loretta; Awong-Taylor, Judy; Linden, Monica; Marley, Kate; Reiness, C. Gary; Uzman, J. Akif (January 2022, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)

   Norman-McKay, Lourdes (Ed.)

   ABSTRACT In an attempt to redesign science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments to be more inclusive of all student populations, institutions of higher learning are reviewing their programs, policies, and the ways they engage students. The Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) has been working with STEM departments over the past 10 years to improve the student experience by incorporating evidence-based teaching practices and creating curricula with a deeper focus on conceptual understanding of scientific principles, competencies, and the process of science. PULSE created the PULSE rubrics, a set of five rubrics designed to assist life sciences departments in assessing their implementation of the recommendations of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Vision and Change report in the areas of curriculum, assessment, faculty practice and faculty support, infrastructure, and climate for change. An additional rubric, on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), is described in this paper. Each of the 13 criteria of the PULSE DEI rubric begins with a context section of background information with references and a scale of 0 to 4 (baseline to exemplar) with descriptors for each score. The PULSE DEI rubric has been added to allow departments to determine the starting point for their DEI work and reveal areas that require attention. All PULSE rubrics can be accessed from the PULSE Community website ( https://www.pulse-community.org/rubrics ). 

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