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1. Departmental Initiatives across a University Alliance to Increase Minority STEM Doctoral Student Success

   Schimmel, KA; Campbell, CD; Gumpertz, M; Huet, YM; Kelkar, AD; Kizito, JP. (June 2020, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Three diverse public universities(North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina Charlotte, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University)have adapted and implemented an institutional change model that proposes five core elements for achieving cultural change in colleges and universities to increase the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields. Since URM doctoral students spend most of their time exposed to the culture of their academic department as they take classes, conduct research, and interact with departmental faculty, staff, and other graduate students, the climate they experience and the support they receive at the departmental level can have a major impact on their success. When interventions address students directly, once they graduate, there may be no lasting change in the department. However, when faculty attitudes and mentoring practices along with departmental processes and procedures change, the changes are likely to be more sustainable. Using institutional theory as the analytical lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine how one collaborative project implements a faculty-led institutional change model for diversifying the STEM professoriate. Each participating doctoral granting department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success designated as a Faculty Fellow. The Fellow receives programmatic support to increase their understanding of the issues facing URMs in doctoral programs and assessment support to identify the departmental practices that may be hindering URM student success. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the departmental faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the Fellow develops a departmental initiative designed to address departmental weaknesses. The faculty as a whole develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This paper will explore the process of developing the departmental initiatives and diversity plans as well as report on some initiatives and plans developed. The benefits and drawbacks of the approach are discussed along with best practices identified to this point 

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2. How do departments support their underrepresented minority doctoral students? Are they doing enough?

   Brent, R; Schimmel, KA; Gumpertz, M. (January 2021, CoNECD - Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity - Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   A major barrier to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. One factor contributing to this situation is that the two-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. Many efforts have been made to decrease the attrition, most involving direct work with doctoral students and others concentrating on institutional changes such naming a high-level administrator to coordinate recruitment and retention efforts. Often lacking in these efforts are attempts to change faculty attitudes and practices that negatively affect student retention. Three public universities including one HBCU are currently carrying out a five-year project to develop and pilot-test a department-level process to fill this gap. Why the focus on the department level? Since URM students spend most of their time in their departments as they take classes, attend seminars, conduct research, and interact informally with department faculty, staff, and other graduate students, the climate they experience and the support they receive can have a major impact on their success. In addition, changes in a department can last well beyond the end of a grant. When interventions address students directly, once they graduate there may be no lasting change in the department. When faculty attitudes and mentoring practices change, on the other hand, the changes may last and continue to help students succeed long after the grant expires. The project seeks to help department faculty increase their understanding of the issues facing underrepresented minorities in doctoral programs, identify and remedy the departmental practices that may be hindering URM student success, and examine and improve their own mentoring practices. In the project, six cohorts of faculty members and both URM and non-URM doctoral students—two cohorts at each participating university—will be assembled and surveyed. The faculty members will be asked how their departments address recruitment and retention of URM students, how they personally support and mentor their URM students, and how welcoming and supportive of URM students they perceive their department to be. The students will be asked to express their level of satisfaction with their coursework and their relationships with faculty and other graduate students, describe the learning opportunities and mentoring they have received, and discuss how welcoming and supportive of URM students their departments have been. To initiate the gathering of baseline information, the first cohort—79 faculty members, 16 URM students, and 94 non-URM students from six STEM departments at one of the universities—was surveyed. This presentation will report and discuss the results. 

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3. How do departments support their underrepresented minority doctoral students? Are they doing enough?

   Brent, R; Schimmel, KA; Gumpertz, M. (January 2021, CoNECD - Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity - Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   A major barrier to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. One factor contributing to this situation is that the two-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. Many efforts have been made to decrease the attrition, most involving direct work with doctoral students and others concentrating on institutional changes such naming a high-level administrator to coordinate recruitment and retention efforts. Often lacking in these efforts are attempts to change faculty attitudes and practices that negatively affect student retention. Three public universities including one HBCU are currently carrying out a five-year project to develop and pilot-test a department-level process to fill this gap. Why the focus on the department level? Since URM students spend most of their time in their departments as they take classes, attend seminars, conduct research, and interact informally with department faculty, staff, and other graduate students, the climate they experience and the support they receive can have a major impact on their success. In addition, changes in a department can last well beyond the end of a grant. When interventions address students directly, once they graduate there may be no lasting change in the department. When faculty attitudes and mentoring practices change, on the other hand, the changes may last and continue to help students succeed long after the grant expires. The project seeks to help department faculty increase their understanding of the issues facing underrepresented minorities in doctoral programs, identify and remedy the departmental practices that may be hindering URM student success, and examine and improve their own mentoring practices. In the project, six cohorts of faculty members and both URM and non-URM doctoral students—two cohorts at each participating university—will be assembled and surveyed. The faculty members will be asked how their departments address recruitment and retention of URM students, how they personally support and mentor their URM students, and how welcoming and supportive of URM students they perceive their department to be. The students will be asked to express their level of satisfaction with their coursework and their relationships with faculty and other graduate students, describe the learning opportunities and mentoring they have received, and discuss how welcoming and supportive of URM students their departments have been. To initiate the gathering of baseline information, the first cohort—79 faculty members, 16 URM students, and 94 non-URM students from six STEM departments at one of the universities—was surveyed. This presentation will report and discuss the results. 

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4. Improving biology faculty diversity through a co-hiring policy and faculty agents of change

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285602  

   Harris, Marissa; Rosser, Sue; Goldman, Michael; Márquez-Magaña, Leticia; Rohlfs, Rori V (May 2023, PLOS ONE)

   DeChenne-Peters, Sue Ellen (Ed.)

   Persons Excluded due to Ethnicity and Race (PEERs) remain underrepresented in university faculties, particularly in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM) fields, despite increasing representation among students, and mounting evidence supporting the importance of PEER faculty in positively impacting both scientific and educational outcomes. In fact, the ratio of PEER faculty to students has been steadily dropping since 2000. In our case study, we examine the factors that explain creation of an unusually diverse faculty within a biology department. We analyzed nearly 40 years of hiring data in the study department and show that this department (the study department), historically and currently, maintains a significantly higher proportion of PEERs on faculty as compared to two national datasets. Additionally, we identify factors that contributed to hiring of PEERs into tenure and tenure-track positions. We observed a significant increase in the hiring of PEERs concurrent with the implementation of a co-hiring policy (p= 0.04) which allowed a single search to make two hires when at least one candidate was a PEER. In contrast, three key informants at sister departments reported that co-hiring policies did not result in PEER hires, but instead different practices were effective. In line with one of these practices, we observe a possible association between search committees with at least one PEER member and PEER hiring (p = 0.055). Further, the presence of particular faculty members (Agents of Change) on search committees is associated with PEER hiring. In this case study the combination of a co-hire policy based on the principle of interest-convergence to redress hiring inequities, along with the presence of agents of change, increased faculty PEER representation in STEMM departments. 

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5. An Institutional Transformation Model to Increase Minority STEM Doctoral Student Success.

   Gumpertz, M and (January 2019, 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)

   null (Ed.)

   One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP(Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program. 

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