STEM students leading cultural change: How agency and capacity for collective action are cultivated within a distributed network

Robert P. Dalka; Chandra Anne Turpen; Devyn Shafer; Brianne Gutmann

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Values in Engineering: Ethics and Justice-Oriented Engineering
Tagged Division: Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division (LEES)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 34
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44249
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44249
Download Count: 1520

Paper Authors

biography

Robert P. Dalka University of Maryland, College Park

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Robert Dalka is a graduate student in the Physics department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a part of the Physics Education Research Group, along with his advisor, Dr. Chandra Turpen. His research interests are in student leadership and organizational change.

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Chandra Anne Turpen University of Maryland, College Park

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Dr. Chandra Turpen is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. She has expertise in physics education research and engineering education research. Her work involves designing and researching contexts for learning (for students, educators, and faculty) within higher education. Her research draws from perspectives in anthropology, cultural psychology, and the learning sciences to focus on the role of culture and ideology in science learning and educational change. Her research interests include how to: (a) disrupt problematic cultural narratives in STEM (e.g. brilliance narratives, meritocracy, and individualistic competition); (b) cultivate equity-minded approaches in educational spheres, where educators take responsibility for racialized inequities in student success; and (c) cultivate more ethical future scientists and engineers by blending social, political and technological spheres. She prioritizes working on projects that seek to share power with students and orient to students as partners in educational transformation. She pursues projects that aim to advance social justice in undergraduate STEM programs and she makes these struggles for change a direct focus of her research.

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Devyn Shafer

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Devyn Shafer is a doctoral candidate in Physics Education Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her work focuses on student transitions from high school to post-secondary engineering programs.

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Brianne Gutmann San José State University

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Brianne Gutmann (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at San José State University. She does physics education research with expertise in adaptive online learning tools, identity-responsive mentoring and community building, and macroethics in science education. She received her PhD in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019, where she focused on mastery-style online learning for engineers in a large preparatory physics course. In her postdoctoral work at Texas State University, she co-developed and implemented curricula to engage students in conversations about ethics, science and society, with a research interest in how to best support students and instructors in these conversations. She recently finished a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship at the National Science Foundation, supporting and working with the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program. She is also an organizer for the Access Network, a national network of student-led organizations working for equity in STEM.

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Abstract

In typical Engineering and Science education, students often are not given opportunities to build skills outside of narrowly defined, technical domains (Lucena 2013). Experiences that encourage students to engage in social justice and activist work is crowded out in traditional STEM programs. Oftentimes, these structures must be created deliberately in order to provide student leaders with this type of mentorship (Leydens 2014, Nieusma 2011). One such initiative, the Access Network, aims to do just that. The Access Network is a collection of programs (sites) that are situated in U.S. universities that work towards a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible version of the STEM community (Quan 2019). Access prioritizes student leaders, both at the network-level and in their local sites, by empowering them to take the lead on actions and by providing support for this work. Access sites engage in activities that build inclusive learning communities, provide guidance through peer mentorship, and support growth in students’ leadership around social justice.

One major function of the Access Network is to connect students across these local efforts and to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences between sites. One central way that this is done is through the work of Network Fellows, student leaders who work collaboratively in network decision-making and team projects that support the network and the sites. The Network Fellow team is mentored by two members of the Core Organizers team—long time members of the Access Network who have experience in activist change work within academia and who typically hold faculty-level positions at their institutions. Network Fellows are supported by a stipend for the semester-long position, which acknowledges the importance of their work, which is often devalued in STEM academia. Additionally, Access values students’ expertise in their own experiences of the STEM community, and empowers them to pursue projects and change efforts that they see as important.

The Network Fellow position is one that is quite unique in STEM higher education. It provides space for students to take power over decision making and supports them through mentorship in social justice and activist approaches (Amezcua 2020). To better understand how students approach this role and view their work, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with nine Network Fellows who served in the role for at least two semesters. In our analysis of emergent themes, we have found that individual agency over their work, shared leadership in decision making, and building relationships across the network that connect to a larger movement are key outcomes of the Network Fellow experience. We have additionally identified key conceptualizations of the team collaboration that Network Fellows discuss that cultivate the outcomes described above. We see these conceptualizations as important for capturing how the Network Fellow team conducts its work. We hope for our work to serve as a model for others that wish to cultivate similar experiences for their own students in STEM.

Citation
Format

Dalka, R. P., & Turpen, C. A., & Shafer, D., & Gutmann, B. (2023, June), STEM students leading cultural change: How agency and capacity for collective action are cultivated within a distributed network Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44249

TY - CPAPER
AB - In typical Engineering and Science education, students often are not given opportunities to build skills outside of narrowly defined, technical domains (Lucena 2013). Experiences that encourage students to engage in social justice and activist work is crowded out in traditional STEM programs. Oftentimes, these structures must be created deliberately in order to provide student leaders with this type of mentorship (Leydens 2014, Nieusma 2011). One such initiative, the Access Network, aims to do just that. The Access Network is a collection of programs (sites) that are situated in U.S. universities that work towards a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible version of the STEM community (Quan 2019). Access prioritizes student leaders, both at the network-level and in their local sites, by empowering them to take the lead on actions and by providing support for this work. Access sites engage in activities that build inclusive learning communities, provide guidance through peer mentorship, and support growth in students’ leadership around social justice.

One major function of the Access Network is to connect students across these local efforts and to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences between sites. One central way that this is done is through the work of Network Fellows, student leaders who work collaboratively in network decision-making and team projects that support the network and the sites. The Network Fellow team is mentored by two members of the Core Organizers team—long time members of the Access Network who have experience in activist change work within academia and who typically hold faculty-level positions at their institutions. Network Fellows are supported by a stipend for the semester-long position, which acknowledges the importance of their work, which is often devalued in STEM academia. Additionally, Access values students’ expertise in their own experiences of the STEM community, and empowers them to pursue projects and change efforts that they see as important.

The Network Fellow position is one that is quite unique in STEM higher education. It provides space for students to take power over decision making and supports them through mentorship in social justice and activist approaches (Amezcua 2020). To better understand how students approach this role and view their work, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with nine Network Fellows who served in the role for at least two semesters. In our analysis of emergent themes, we have found that individual agency over their work, shared leadership in decision making, and building relationships across the network that connect to a larger movement are key outcomes of the Network Fellow experience. We have additionally identified key conceptualizations of the team collaboration that Network Fellows discuss that cultivate the outcomes described above. We see these conceptualizations as important for capturing how the Network Fellow team conducts its work. We hope for our work to serve as a model for others that wish to cultivate similar experiences for their own students in STEM.
AU - Robert P. Dalka
AU - Chandra Anne Turpen
AU - Devyn Shafer
AU - Brianne Gutmann
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - STEM students leading cultural change: How agency and capacity for collective action are cultivated within a distributed network
UR - https://peer.asee.org/44249
DO - 10.18260/1-2--44249
ER -