NSF Award
2304106
To strengthen the economic and technological future of the U.S., there is a need to increase the number of well-trained STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students at universities and colleges. This must occur while the number of college-aged students in the U.S. is decreasing. Thus, relying on just serving the types of students who have majored in STEM fields in the past is inadequate. Instead, there is a need to recruit and retain students who have not typically studied STEM disciplines. This can be achieved through diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation (DIB) efforts. Yet, colleges and universities will never fully address DIB challenges unless they are addressed in mathematics and statistics. Mathematics and statistics departments impact essentially every STEM student who enters the university. Given the mathematical sciences' departments unique role in educating essentially all students who enter higher education, it is crucial for all STEM disciplines that the mathematical sciences address DIB issues in STEM education. To do this, TPSE Math (Transforming Post-Secondary Education Math) will pilot a two-year DIB Math/Stat Leadership Institute to train mathematicians and statisticians as DIB consultants and provide support to mathematics and statistics departments to work on a DIB improvement project. The DIB Math/Stat Leadership Institute will facilitate mathematics and statistics departments in higher education in developing environments that are more diverse and inclusive while broadening participation. This will impact a broad group of individuals connected with the department including undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, faculty, and staff, of different races, ethnicities, gender identities, nationalities, and disability status. Also, this will involve a diverse set of departments such as those at two-year, four-year principally undergraduate institutions, and research-intensive institutions. <br/> <br/>Because of their enormous service role, mathematics and statistics departments impact essentially every STEM student who enters a college or university. To help these departments successfully advance their efforts toward diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in STEM education, TPSE Math created a set of resources tailored to the mathematical sciences, called the COME-IN tool. COME-IN was developed in partnership with the AAAS SEA Change initiative. In this project, TPSE Math plans a 2-year DIB Math/Stat Leadership Institute as a pilot to test the viability of small departmental teams using the COME-IN DIB tools along with math/stat DIB consultants as catalysts for transformational change in mathematical sciences departments. This DIB Math/Stat Leadership Institute will consist of four interrelated components: building a foundation to improve DIB efforts in mathematical sciences departments, training DIB consultants, establishing a community and network of institutions working in collaboration on DIB improvements in the mathematical sciences communities, and evaluating these efforts. TPSE Math will continue to partner with the AAAS SEA Change initiative and partner with math/stat professional organizations such as the Mathematics Association of America and the NSF INCLUDES National Network. The long-term vision is to pilot, test, modify, and expand the DIB Math/Stat Leadership Institute, which will establish the resulting program as a model for the mathematical sciences communities to improve DIB efforts. This project is funded by NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) Initiative, which seeks to motivate and accelerate collaborative infrastructure building to advance and sustain systemic change to broaden participation in STEM at scale.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
