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Abstract This paper focuses on the undergraduate experiences in computer sciences (CS) disciplines of eight Native women and two-spirit undergraduates and how their values and experiences around the communal goal of giving back enable them to persist in computing. The paper draws from a one-year study that included participants across the U.S.A from predominantly White institutions, Native serving institutions, and tribal colleges. Utilizing the decolonizing and participant-centered methods of photo elicitation, our interviews used photographs taken by participants as starting points for conversations. This method resulted in deep understandings of participants’ experiences of the supports and barriers in their CS programs, and of the importance of giving back for persistence. We adapt Page-Reeves and colleagues’ 2019 framework for giving back and Native students in STEM—particularly the concepts of giving back as a Native value and giving back in the context of CS education—to illuminate the ways in which participants persisted and navigated their identities as Native students and emergent computer scientists. We also introduce a new concept, culturally connected giving back, to describe the ways in which Native undergraduates in computing contributed, or planned to contribute, towards technology sovereignty and cultural preservation. CS, like many STEM fields, is typically viewed as highly individualistic and not aligned with communal goals of helping others. However, Native participants in this study identified computing as having the potential for giving back. They incorporated a broad range of giving back actions into their computing professional identities through teaching, mentoring, serving as role models, creating counterspaces, or preserving their cultures using their computing skills. Through giving back, participants fulfilled a sense of obligation to their communities or counteracted negative stereotypes about Native learners. Beneficiaries of these acts of giving back included Native and other minoritized peers, younger students, home communities, and other Native communities. Importantly, opportunities to give back served as strong motivators to persist in CS in spite of challenges. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy and practice and also explore the implications for how institutions and CS departments can support Native student recruitment, retention, and success. 

Abstract Conducting ecological research in a way that addresses complex, real‐world problems requires a diverse, interdisciplinary and quantitatively trained ecology and environmental science workforce. This begins with equitably training students in ecology, interdisciplinary science, and quantitative skills at the undergraduate level. Understanding the current undergraduate curriculum landscape in ecology and environmental sciences allows for targeted interventions to improve equitable educational opportunities. Ecological forecasting is a sub‐discipline of ecology with roots in interdisciplinary and quantitative science. We use ecological forecasting to show how ecology and environmental science undergraduate curriculum could be evaluated and ultimately restructured to address the needs of the 21^stcentury workforce. To characterize the current state of ecological forecasting education, we compiled existing resources for teaching and learning ecological forecasting at three curriculum levels: online resources; US university courses on ecological forecasting; and US university courses on topics related to ecological forecasting. We found persistent patterns (1) in what topics are taught to US undergraduate students at each of the curriculum levels; and (2) in the accessibility of resources, in terms of course availability at higher education institutions in the United States. We developed and implemented programs to increase the accessibility and comprehensiveness of ecological forecasting undergraduate education, including initiatives to engage specifically with Native American undergraduates and online resources for learning quantitative concepts at the undergraduate level. Such steps enhance the capacity of ecological forecasting to be more inclusive to undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds and expose more students to quantitative training. 

This work describes an effort to nudge engineering faculty toward adopting known best practices for inclusive teaching through a program called Engineering is Not Neutral: Transforming Instruction via Collaboration and Engagement Faculty (ENNTICE). This monthly faculty learning community (FLC) followed the three-year structure of the Colorado Equity Toolkit: Year 1 (reported in 2022) focused on self-inquiry including reflection; Year 2 (reported in 2023) focused on course design including training new engineering faculty; Year 3 (reported in the current paper) focused on building community. The emphasis on building community allows us to address our research question: To what degree does faculty participation in an FLC impact engineering college culture? Building community is measured through broadening participation by faculty in known best practices for inclusive teaching, including three elements of interest. First, we share within our engineering college the progress each department has made toward inclusive teaching participation, using thermometer-styled graphics like those used to illustrate progress toward a fundraising goal. Second, after reviewing certain sections of our engineering college’s plan for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), we submitted brainstormed ideas for implementation to our dean’s office. And third, after reviewing reports from student focus groups conducted in 2020/21, we evaluated progress and made recommendations for next steps; in this context the clarity and urgency of the student feedback is both motivational and difficult to ignore. The common theme in each of three elements is seeking to bridge the valley of neglect that so often divides scholarly work about DEI from concrete changes that benefit students, employers, and the broader community. 

STEM higher education in the U.S. has long been an uninviting space for minoritized individuals, particularly women, persons of color, and international students and scholars. In recent years, the contemporary realities of a global pandemic, sociopolitical divides, and heightened racial tensions, along with elevated levels of mental illness and emotional distress among college students, have intensified the need for an undergraduate STEM education cultureandclimate that recognizes and values the humanity of our students. The purpose of this article is to advance a more humanized undergraduate STEM education and to provide a framework to guide efforts toward achieving that vision. We argue that humanizing approaches recognize and value the complexity of individuals and the cultural capital that they bring to their education, and that this is particularly important for empowering minoritized students who are subordinated in status in STEM higher education. A STEM education that centers students’ humanity gives rise to equity and promotes human well-being and flourishing alongside knowledge acquisition and skill development. We then offer a guiding framework for conceptualizing the broader ecosystem in which undergraduate STEM students are embedded, and use it to outline the individual and collective roles that different stakeholders in the ecosystem can play in humanizing STEM education. 

Engineering faculty have heard the call to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into their classrooms, but many have asked the question: What can I do to advance DEI in my courses? This commentary provides one answer. We summarize our process to engineer DEI into an undergraduate fluid mechanics course following a process that included (1) participation in formal programs, (2) a systematic review of course materials, and (3) a weekly series of conversations that examined DEI in the context of engineering education from academic, social, and personal perspectives. The formal programs deepened our awareness; the systematic review identified improvements in the syllabus, nomenclature, and videos; but most importantly the conversations illuminated how the same technical material can be associated with vastly different cultural perspectives—a key point from the theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. We call for engineering faculty to seek opportunities to learn more of these perspectives, and then to reflect on how to improve their courses accordingly.