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This study aims to explore how science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) graduate students’ experiences with and conceptualizations of racism can more clearly expose the current racial climate across multiple academic institutions.

A mixed-method approach using a single online questionnaire consisting of open-ended and Likert scale questions about their perceptions of the racial climate in their department was completed by 34 graduate students of different races and STEMM disciplines.

Results from this study suggested that graduate students, regardless of race, consistently perceive STEMM as colorblind. The results also suggest that experiencing or witnessing racial discrimination is potentially predictive of perceptions of negative social support. Furthermore, multiracial and international graduate students often face different experiences of discrimination than do other graduate students.

By better understanding STEMM academic climates, higher education institutions can begin to reflect on the social barriers that may limit minoritized students from matriculating in academic STEMM spaces and affect retention.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of leadership development programmes, underpinned by Transformational Learning Theory (TLT).

A corpus-informed analysis was conducted using survey data from 690 participants. Data were collected from participants’ responses to the question “please tell us about the impact of your overall experience”, which culminated in a combined corpus of 75,053 words.

Findings identified patterns of language clustered around the following frequently used word types, namely, confidence; influence; self-awareness; insight; and impact.

This in-depth qualitative evaluation of participants’ feedback has provided insight into how TLT can be applied to develop future health-care leaders. The extent to which learning has had a transformational impact at the individual level, in relation to their perceived ability to influence, holds promise for the wider impact of this group in relation to policy, practice and the promotion of clinical excellence in the future. However, the latter can only be ascertained by undertaking further realist evaluation and longitudinal study to understand the mechanisms by which transformational learning occurs and is successfully translated to influence in practice.

Previous research has expounded traditional leadership theories to guide the practice of health-care leadership development. The paper goes some way to demonstrate the impact of using the principles of TLT within health-care leadership development programmes. The approach taken by The Florence Nightingale Foundation has the potential to generate confident leaders who may be instrumental in creating positive changes across various clinical environments.