Message from CEILS
In the past year, we have been faced with several major transformations that have upended the lives of all of us. The shift in consciousness and opening of spaces for discussion on anti-racism has challenged many of us to reconsider our cultural norms and institutional policies. We are aware that many of you experience racism every day and need support in different ways, to heal racial trauma; we will work to create and share such resources and upcoming “Becoming an Anti-Racist Educator” workshops.
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CEILS has curated materials from across the nation to help us work towards a goal of equity and social justice in STEM education. This page is designed to provide resources to help you learn more about inequities in STEM and strategies to create more inclusive and equitable classroom environments and departments.
Many of the resources here were originally shared by our partners in UCLA’s Center for Diverse Leadership in Science, led by Professor Aradhna Tripati.
Guides and Teaching Techniques
CEILS Resources for Teaching Through Traumatic Times: guidelines created in June 2020 in response to racial justice uprisings
1-pg: Steps for shifting to remote teaching in equitable ways
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Additional UCLA Resources
- The UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Acknowledging the Current Racial Crisis in the Classroom and Resources for Racial Trauma
- The UCLA Center for the Advancement of Teaching: Supporting Our Students in Response to Racial Trauma and A Short Guide to Inclusive Strategies for Remote Teaching
- The Science Policy Group at UCLA: What You Can Do
The STEM Evidence-Based Inclusive Teaching guide is one of the excellent evidence-based teaching guides from CBE-Life Sciences Education. It includes a checklist, along with supporting research for each recommendation.
Becoming an Anti-Racist Educator
This excellent resource, created by Wheaton College in Massachusetts, is an action-oriented guide that does not claim to be exhaustive. It is meant to engage all educators in the college campus in becoming anti-racist. It will direct you to resources produced by communities of educators across the US.
Scientist Spotlight
This initiative provides access to easy-to- implement assignments/activities that link course content to the stories of counter-stereotypical scientists from across STEM. The original studies on Scientists Spotlights were published in 2015 and 2016. A growing body of research has revealed dramatic and positive effects of the addition of these simple assignments to biology courses. Learn more about Scientist Spotlight here.
Project Biodiversify provides ready-to-use examples of research concepts that highlight a diverse set of biologists, organized by biological topic, scientist identity, study attribute, and societal relevance. They align research examples with core biology curricula and, at the same time, highlight and humanize researchers as role models for students from many walks of life. Click here to explore.
I am a Scientist
This is a collection of 22 scientist-based digital toolkits, including slides and discussion prompts, for scientists that span chemistry, physics, statistics, economics, and biology. The project is designed to break stereotypes about scientists while introducing students to a wide range of STEM fields. Click here to explore.
USC Inclusive Syllabus Review Guide
A Guide to Academic Advising for STEM Faculty
UC Berkeley: Strategic Planning for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Toolkit
UT Austin: Diversity Planning Tools for Diversity and Inclusion Committees
EAB: Guide to Improve Student Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
EAB: How can I become an anti-racist leader? 7 questions campus leadership should ask themselves
IHE: Don’t Rely on Black Faculty to Do the Antiracist Work, including concrete recommendations
“Four Hiring Strategies for Increasing Faculty Diversity”, in Diverse Issues in Higher Education
“Redoubling Our Efforts: How Institutions Can Affect Faculty Diversity”, in American Council on Education
“Strategies to improve equity in faculty hiring”, in Molecular Biology of the Cell
“An evidence-based faculty recruitment workshop influences departmental hiring practice perceptions among university faculty“, in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Research and News
Many studies have explored equity and social justice in STEM. We have compiled a short list of recent articles related to this topic, but there are a multitude of others available.
- Online Education Platforms Scale College STEM Instruction with Equivalent Learning Outcomes at Lower Costs
- Reducing achievement gaps in undergraduate general chemistry could lift underrepresented students into a “hyperpersistent zone”
- Can the Racial and Economic Justice Movement Help Advance Equity in Higher Education?
- Understanding Persistent Gender Gaps in STEM
- Coming Out in Class: Challenges and Benefits of Active Learning in a Biology Classroom for LGBTQIA Students
- Speaking Up: A Model of Self-Advocacy for STEM Undergraduates with ADHD and/or Specific Learning Disabilities
In the News: Equity in Higher Education
- Chemists #ShutDownSTEM to reflect on diversity in science
- The Invisible Minority in STEM: Being a Transgender Scientist and Trainee
- Can the Racial and Economic Justice Movement Help Advance Equity in Higher Education?
- A Survival Guide for Black, Indigenous, and Other Women of Color in Academe
- Online Schooling: Who is Harmed and Who is Helped?
- The Atlantic: The False Promise of Anti-racism Books
- A group of non-Black scholars invites other professors to help strengthen teaching in support of Black lives
Recommended Readings from the Committee on Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence (STRIDE Committee)
STRIDE Recommended Readings were used in the creation of the STRIDE Faculty Recruitment Workshops and are a curated collection of research on creating diverse spaces in academia. The STRIDE Committee provides information and advice about practices that will maximize the likelihood that diverse, well-qualified candidates for faculty positions will be identified, and, if selected for offers, recruited, retained, and promoted at the University of Michigan.
A Five-Step Program for the Scientific Community to Address Inequality, from the president of the National Academy of Sciences
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Dr. Marica McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, discusses how to rectify racial inequalities in STEM fields. She provides examples of current, prevailing inequalities affecting under-served communities. She also suggests five steps for the scientific community to address racial injustices.
Also see related PNAS Editorial from PNAS Editor-in-chief Dr. Mary R. Berenbaum, “PNAS and prejudice”, with a key quote “policies designed in the absence of evidence of efficacy have the potential to perpetuate, rather than resolve, the problems.”
“Recreating Wakanda by promoting Black excellence in ecology and evolution“, co-authored by UCLA’s Shane Campbell-Stanton
This PNAS opinion piece includes concrete actions with citations. Here is an excerpt:
When people take action—individually and collectively—that’s when we see results. Now is the time to act as individuals and institutions. We challenge our colleagues and institutions to take these tangible actions.
- We can adopt practices, initiatives, and models that have been successful in supporting students and faculty of color, including those cited in this article (9). We can continue by also being scientific about the problem of diversity and how to address it. A place to start is rigorous analysis of data about students on our own campuses to understand both our challenges and our opportunities (18).
- As individual researchers and engineers we can mentor students of color and become their champions as they make the transition to graduate school, postdoctoral fellowships, and junior faculty positions (9). We can actively recruit applicants of color for faculty positions (18, 20). We can support colleagues of color as we do any colleague by collaborating with them on grants, research, and papers; reading and citing their work; and inviting them to give talks (20).
- As institutions, we can replicate and adapt those practices and programs, setting and working toward goals for significantly increasing the numbers of students and faculty of color who are succeeding (12, 21).
Accelerating Systemic Change in STEM Higher Education: Resources on Equity and Inclusion for STEM and Higher Education
,These recent articles and resources are meant to serve as a starting point for learning about equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice – with a particular focus on addressing systemic anti-Black racism – within STEM and higher education. This list of resources is long, but not by any means exhaustive.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6506/884
“One problem in the Western world is that the scientific enterprise is in denial about its inherent racism. Black scientists encounter discrimination when they embark on a science career in Western countries. The overwhelming message from their experiences is that the culture of academic science where Black scientists are underrepresented is riddled with deeply entrenched racism of various forms and subtleties.”
Events and Webinars
For a full, up-to-date list of upcoming events, visit the CEILS calendar.
Featured Webinar Recording: Responding to Racial Bias and Microagressions in the Online Environment
Featured Webinar Series Recordings: Racial Equity in Online Environments
Additional Recordings of Past Webinars:
- Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities
- Advancing Equity in STEM in a Time of Disruption: with Dr. Robert Jones and Dr. Shirley Malcolm
- A Charge for Moving Forward with Systemic Change in Turbulent Times with Dr. Ann Austin and Dr. Leslie Gonzales
- Addressing Anti-Blackness on Campus: Implications for Educators and Institutions