Hi Howard and Travis. I really enjoyed watching this video. Your organization is poised to move the needle in terms of increasing the numbers of STEM faculty from underrepresented groups. Can you say more about how you will develop, test, and disseminate the set of institutional tools to attract, hire, and retain faculty? And how will you measure success of your three objectives? I work with URM graduate students in STEM, and many of them choose to not become faculty because of negative experiences in STEM academic culture as students. I hope your work will provide institutions with strategies to improve STEM culture.

Hello Mia... Our process for seeking to diversify STEM Faculty is one that is taking a very critical examination of institutional practices and policies around the recruitment, hiring, and retention of faculty.   With each of our three objectives, we have organized task forces with national partners, institutional leaders, and expert scholars to tackle the development and dissemination of 6 deliverables for the public.  With each of these groups, we are seeking to utilize a collective impact approach to use the collective intelligence of APLU's vast nation-wide network to inform and iterate our products as well.   

More specifically with our objective one (diversifying STEM faculty), we have developed a comprehensive conceptual model that is focused on how institutions can recruit, yield, and retain diverse faculty into STEM.  APLU will be hosting our first APLU INCLUDES Summit on April 25-26th to engage our network in the careful consideration of these products.  We will be utilizing a designed thinking approach to gather feedback and input on the projects activities as well as providing space for institutional leaders to engage/test/refine some of the objectives' pieces.   You can check out more about our project here: http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/stem-education/aplu-includes/about-aplu-includes.html 

I am excited to have another chance to further pick your brains on this project. I'd like to revisit your notion of groups networking in an alliance around data - what we have, how we collect it, how we understand it long-term and use it quickly.  It is clear that what we need to know to better solve your problem could well help many of us solve ours. Our FIRST2 project is certainly in need of better data to help understand when and how students first start developing STEM identities, and what and how individuals, opportunities, systems and forces both act to develop and discourage this.  Can we have a re-do of our voting process? :-)  Joanna, WV FIRST2 project (and quality control for Mr. Potato Head at SRI NIC workshop)

 Hi Howard and Travis - I'd be very interested to learn more about your conceptual model. I went to your website and didn't see it so I hope you make that available to me and others who will no doubt be interested. Like Mia, I also noted the potential you have to make a huge impact given the numbers of institutions involved. I would love to hear more about how you are going to track use of your tools and the pathways that students exposed to them take. Jeanne

This is great work. I'm wrapping up an NSF grant now on Transforming Engineering Culture to Advance Diversity and Inclusion (TECAID), where one of the goals is to help faculty understand the need for diversity and inclusion. Looking to change the culture where looking at the faculty in the department makes a difference for students to see role models. Great project! I look forward to reading more and seeing your results.

Congratulations on the submission of the video!

Hi Howard and Travis -- Thanks for your work, and I look forward to seeing the conceptual model others have asked about.  I'm the Project Director for LEVERAGE which focuses on increasing the diversity of the engineering professorate -- where your project is instituational and policy focused, LEVERAGE focuses on building infrastructure to support the success of individual faculty members.  I'm wondering if there are opportunities for your work to inform content that could benefit diverse engineering faculty, or what other opportunities might exist for collaboration.  

Hi Howard and Travis - this is really interesting on lots of levels, and I look forward to seeing the tools/institutional strategies that you identify. Where do cluster hires fit into your model? As you know, faculty opinion on strategic cluster hiring is mixed (and has led to the downfall of more than one provost) -- if this is a mechanism that really does increase faculty diversity, how do we sell it and other models to faculty who are used to one way of hiring (a way that keeps bringing us predominantly white faculty)?  Also i wonder if you have been looking at the models funded by NSF's NRT: Innovations in Graduate Education -- I am leading one such effort that we think will increase retention of URM and first generation doctoral students in computational sciences (broadly defined) and I expect there are a number of other IGE models out there that you could draw from as well. And, of course, this fits nicely with our CAHSI INCLUDES model which seeks to both expand higher education pathways for Latinx and other URM students and to create institutional change within higher education. Look forward to further discussions!

Howard and Travis, a focus on the professoriate is a powerful leverage point.  I applaud your effort because academic institutions are not easy to change.  As others have mentioned I would also be interested in learning more about your model.  Some questions that come to mind are:

1. Are you connecting to programs that are committed to moving students successfully through graduate programs?

2.Will mentoring of graduate students in your member institutions occur-- e.g. engagement in research programs, help with early public, engagement with professional organizations, etc. I guess I'm asking whether their CVs will be in good shape.

3. Will the systems and requirements for the professorship remain the same, i.e. will their be a better balance between credit for contribution to practice and publication.

You are undertaking a tremendous feat.  I wish you well in your endeavor.

Howard and Travis, like Kimberly I would be interested in your conceptual model.  Though it is after the video showcase, I would be interested in hearing what you learn in the April25-28 gathering.

Howard and Travis, I wish you all the best in this endeavor.

Janice