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This instrumental case study examines the science identity and career goals of 16 Black and Latinx science and engineering postdoctoral scholars. Interviews were conducted and grounded by the model of science identity to understand the ways in which science identity develops over time and the influence of race/ethnicity and gender on career goals. Through deductive data analysis techniques, four themes emerged: (1) science competency is built at an early age and solidified in high school; (2) science performance is actualized but questioned in college; (3) science recognition is fostered through professional development and success; and (4) racism and sexism shape the desire to make an impact through a STEM career. Understanding how Black and Latinx postdoctoral scholars’ science identity and STEM career goals are nurtured and thwarted within educational systems can be illuminating to those training the next generation of advanced STEM professionals. If the individuals next in line to enter the professoriate are deterred, greater consideration must be given to their experiences. 

This instrumental case study examines the science identity and career goals of 16 Black and Latinx science and engineering postdoctoral scholars. Interviews were conducted and grounded by the model of science identity to understand the ways in which science identity develops over time and the influence of race/ethnicity and gender on career goals. Through deductive data analysis techniques, four themes emerged: (1) science competency is built at an early age and solidified in high school; (2) science performance is actualized but questioned in college; (3) science recognition is fostered through professional development and success; and (4) racism and sexism shape the desire to make an impact through a STEM career. Understanding how Black and Latinx postdoctoral scholars’ science identity and STEM career goals are nurtured and thwarted within educational systems can be illuminating to those training the next generation of advanced STEM professionals. If the individuals next in line to enter the professoriate are deterred, greater consideration must be given to their experiences. 

An intrinsic case study explores the challenges shared by international engineering postdoctoral scholars working in the United States (US). Little research has been devoted to their experiences despite their stark increase in the postdoctoral labor force over the last decade. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight engineering postdoctoral scholars hailing from Canada, China, Colombia, Iran, Italy, and Thailand. Participant interviews were analyzed inductively and resulted in four themes: (1) Immigration concerns; (2) Strains to find a community; (3) Pressure to publish and secure funding; and (4) Inadequate career counseling. The identified themes could be particularly instructive to Ph.D. advisors outside the US whose students may pursue postdoctoral positions in the US, Ph.D. recipients, US postdoctoral advisors, and US college and university international offices. 

This phenomenological study explores the mentoring needs of 13 Black and Latinx engineering postdoctoral scholars who aspire to the professoriate. An adaptation of the ideal mentoring model (Zambrana et al., 2015) is employed as the conceptual framework. Moustakas’ (1994) four-stage process of phenomenological data analysis was utilized to examine the interview data: epoché, horizontalization, imaginative variation, and synthesis. The phenomenon’s essence is: Black and Latinx engineering postdoctoral scholars have primary and secondary mentoring needs pertaining to their immediate career acquisition of a tenure-track faculty position. Primary mentoring needs include expanding their professional network and receiving support in being a competitive faculty applicant, as well as coaching on work-life balance. Secondary needs consist of enhancing and promoting their technical skills and acquiring political guidance on racial/ethnic bias in academia. The findings of this study reveal the importance of higher education institutions and postdoctoral advisors assuming greater responsibility for ensuring postdoctoral scholars receive the mentorship and career support they desire, which may require a systematic change in the postdoctoral training environment. 

This phenomenological study explores the mentoring needs of 13 Black and Latinx engineering postdoctoral scholars who aspire to the professoriate. An adaptation of the ideal mentoring model (Zambrana et al., 2015) is employed as the conceptual framework. Moustakas’ (1994) four-stage process of phenomenological data analysis was utilized to examine the interview data: epoché, horizontalization, imaginative variation, and synthesis. The phenomenon’s essence is: Black and Latinx engineering postdoctoral scholars have primary and secondary mentoring needs pertaining to their immediate career acquisition of a tenure-track faculty position. Primary mentoring needs include expanding their professional network and receiving support in being a competitive faculty applicant, as well as coaching on work-life balance. Secondary needs consist of enhancing and promoting their technical skills and acquiring political guidance on racial/ethnic bias in academia. The findings of this study reveal the importance of higher education institutions and postdoctoral advisors assuming greater responsibility for ensuring postdoctoral scholars receive the mentorship and career support they desire, which may require a systematic change in the postdoctoral training environment. 

An instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) explored the messages STEM postdoctoral scholar women receive about balancing an academic career with a family. Concerningly, women with children are less likely than men with children, or women and men without children, to be offered tenure-track positions or to be promoted (Bird & Rhoton, 2021; Cech & Blair-Lory, 2019; Gregor et al., 2021; Williams & Ceci, 2012; Ysseldyk et al., 2019). This reality suggests that motherhood is in opposition to professional legitimacy in academia (Hill et al., 2014; Thébaud & Taylor, 2021). Furthermore, postdoctoral scholar mothers are more likely than their peers to cite children as their primary reason for not entering the faculty job market (NPA ADVANCE, 2011). Interviews were conducted with 22 demographically diverse STEM postdoctoral scholar women to explore how messages about balancing career and family are considered. Using inductive and deductive methods (Silverman, 1993; Stake, 1995), interview transcripts were analyzed using the ideal worker conceptual framework (Kossek et al., 2021). Two themes arose: (1) STEM postdoctoral women receive messages suggesting they must sacrifice family pursuits for an academic career, and (2) positive modeling and support for balancing career and family are vital for retaining STEM postdoctoral women in the professoriate pathway. These findings illustrate a systemic conflict for STEM postdoctoral scholar women. They describe a necessity to sacrifice family desires, yet positive modeling and support for balancing career and family send messages suggesting it is possible to plan for both. This research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP; award #1821008). 

With funding from a National Science Foundation (NSF) IUSE/PFE: Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (IUSE/PFE: RED) grant, our vision is to focus on faculty development and culture change to reduce the effort and risk experienced by faculty in implementing pedagogical changes and to increase iterative, data-driven changes in teaching. Our project, called Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS), is an adaptation of the “Additive innovation” model proposed by Arizona State University [1]. The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University has a long legacy of individualistic and---in many cases---a fixed mindset [2] approach to teaching with the expectation of top-down management of change. The goal of our project is to evolve the departmental culture to a bottom-up team structure where the faculty embrace an innovative mindset and extend an iterative build-test-learn method of the maker culture [3] that was formalized by the Lean Startup [4] approach. Faculty already have investigative and experimentation-driven processes in place for research and a keen understanding of data to support their hypotheses. We aim to leverage this preexisting strength and knowledge by extending it to the faculty-led, small-scale, iterative improvement of curriculum and pedagogy 

This work in progress (WIP) paper describes a National Science Foundation funded RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) Adaptation and Implementation (A&I) grant focused on changing the culture of a large traditional mechanical engineering department at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and is an adaptation of the “Additive Innovations” model developed by Arizona State University in their RED project[1]. The TAMU RED project is focused entirely on culture change via faculty development, with the goal of shifting from a culture where teaching is secondary to research and courses evolve via sporadic, undocumented, individual innovations to a culture that recognizes teaching’s role in both faculty and student success and encourages a sustained process of incremental improvement and responsiveness to student learning through experimentation, measurement, and sharing. Two key levers in this culture change are (a) a faculty development series focused on innovation and data-driven change and (b) the creation of communities of practice[] or “soft wired’’ teams that support each other and sustain incremental change across semesters as faculty cycle in and out of courses. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to enhance a departmental culture in Mechanical Engineering where faculty regularly discuss current curricular effectiveness and are empowered to develop pedagogical innovations that enable all students and faculty to thrive.