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Strengthening the nation’s technological workforce, competing and expanding its relevance in the global economy, and maintaining personal as well as homeland security will be highly dependent on the quantity, quality, and diversity of the next generations of scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. Production of a diverse generation of human resources with relevant, competitive skills is critical. However, so too is the need to raise an enlightened citizenry with cross-cultural experience and cultural awareness competency, with a broad worldview and global perspectives. These requirements are critical to understanding the challenges and opportunities of scholarly activity in a pluralistic global environment and positioning ourselves to capitalize upon them. Scholars with cross-cultural experience and competency are empowered to adapt and work collaboratively, nationally and globally, with scholars of different races, geopolitical, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Development of effective strategies to transform science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments for inclusion and to broaden the participation in STEM across cultures, socioeconomic standing, race, and gender in higher education has been a dominant topic of pedagogical interest of national priority in the last several decades. However, success in these endeavors is achievable only through systemic change and a cultural shift to address the underlying root causes of socioeconomic disparity, gender, and racial disparities and a paucity of cultural awareness among all educational stakeholders. STEM departments can only be truly transformed for inclusion through the development of sensitive, creative, and student-engaging curricula and targeted recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM. Formation of well-coordinated alliances spanning educational sectors, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and community engagement and outreach are also critical to promoting inclusive and broad participation in STEM education.

The first section of the chapter gives an introduction to various challenges, obstacles, and hindrances that prevent a successful transformation of K–12 science education as well as STEM departments in higher education for inclusion. The second section discusses historical perspectives of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (UAFS) – the institutional profile, missions, and visions of UAFS as a regional university. Policies and strategies for addressing the socioeconomic disparity, faculty gender, and racial disparities and cultural competency awareness at UAFS are also highlighted in this section. Other approaches including targeted efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented minority students, provision of financial assistance for students from low-income families, and a creative “Math-up” curriculum innovation to promote inclusive and broad participation in STEM at UAFS are highlighted in the latter section of the chapter. Formation of alliances between UAFS, local K–12 school districts, and governmental and non-governmental agencies to promote broad participation in STEM at UAFS are discussed. The last section of the chapter provides recommendations for adaptation and sustainability of strategies and efforts aimed at transforming national STEM departments for inclusion.

The advancement of equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education is dependent on institutional culture changes in academia. Faculty equity, diversity and inclusion efforts must engage departmental leadership. The purpose of this paper is to describe the growth and expansion of the ADVANCE leadership program at the University of Washington (UW) for department chairs that was designed to provide department chairs the skills, community and information needed to be agents of change within the academy.

The paper chronicles the program’s growth from a campus-based workshop program to national workshops (LEAD) to a web-based toolkit (LiY!) to support institutions in running their own UW ADVANCE-inspired leadership workshops.

The paper demonstrates the success of each growth stage and the expansion of program impact.

The paper offers recommendations for growing a model from a local to national scale and adapting the described leadership development model at other institutions.

The paper shares a successful model for equipping department chairs to be advocates of gender equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM and to be change agents in higher education.

Claflin University is leading the way in graduating underrepresented minorities at the bachelor’s level and preparing them for graduate school in STEM. Claflin University is a small liberal arts institution with the primary focus on teaching. However, because of the national demand for STEM professions, and the gap between the supply and demand, Claflin administrators were astute enough (14 years ago) to realize that in order to be effective as a teaching institution, there must be a delicate balance between teaching and research. For the state of South Carolina which has the third largest percent population of African Americans (31%) in the country, educated and trained minorities in the STEM fields are in even higher need as they can serve as role models and help build up a minority higher education pipeline within their home towns. HBCUs are central to this mission of increasing minority participation in STEM and have been playing a vital role in educating underrepresented groups. Therefore, Claflin University made a courageous decision (14 years ago) to enhance the role of research-based teaching, specifically in STEM. This synergistic move would bolster Claflin’s competitiveness as a teaching institution with a strong and sustainable research core.

This chapter explores the methods developed to improve STEM success for students at two public urban institutions, a project whose aim is to improve academic outcomes for undergraduate students, especially for those most vulnerable and least likely to succeed in this student population. The theory of change that underpins the project – including its activities and its evaluation plan – posits that three interlocked activities (course redesign, peer mentors and articulation) will lead to improvements in academic outcomes and ultimately contribute to the overarching goal of increasing the number of students from underserved backgrounds who graduate with baccalaureate STEM degrees. The project focusses on the first courses students take in STEM, where they are also most likely to fail. We describe the methodology developed for faculty development and the organizational structure of the peer mentoring component for these courses. Both of these components constitute safe spaces where faculty and peer mentors learn to support students using evidence-based and inclusive instructional practices. Courses redesigned by faculty were offered following a cluster-level randomized control trial design, where sections were assigned to treatment (with or without a peer) or control. These interventions have a positive impact on cumulative GPA, according to preliminary analyses. The project also has a positive effect on faculty participants and on peer mentors, both groups now better prepared to jointly deliver STEM curricula in more effective ways. Among the reasons why this works, instructor empathy surfaces as playing a leading role in academic outcomes for undergraduate students.

As part of the broader effort to diversify higher education in the USA, many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral programs are deeply engaged in diversity work – an array of formal activities and practices meant to boost the representation of women and students of color. This paper aims to examine how underrepresented doctoral students in high-diversity STEM PhD programs contribute to diversity work in their programs.

A case study approach was used to understand the nature of diversity work in four STEM doctoral programs that have enrolled and graduated women and/or underrepresented students of color at rates significantly higher than their disciplines, despite being located in states with affirmative action bans. This study analyzes qualitative data from 24 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups with students from across the four departments.

Data reveal that underrepresented students are simultaneously positioned as representatives of progress and uncompensated consultants in their departments’ ongoing equity and diversity efforts. As a result, student contributions to diversity work are experienced as an ongoing process of emotional labor in which institutional ethos and/or feeling rules in the department shape how students manage their internal and external emotions.

Although diversity-related work is widespread and growing within colleges and universities, this study shows how student engagement in diversification efforts can lead to significant emotional burdens that go unnoticed and uncompensated. In highlighting the invisibility of emotional labor and the skew of its distribution toward minoritized groups, this research calls attention to how tacit feeling rules can undermine the ultimate goal of diversity initiatives within graduate departments and programs.

This chapter traces the career trajectories of the teachHOUSTON science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers since the inception of the program. It asks whether the National Science Foundation (NSF) investment of millions of dollars in STEM education produced more STEM teachers of high quality for the diverse, urban area. The chapter is filled with descriptive statistics and stories. Two major findings are that the teachHOUSTON program produced double-digit physics teachers when the Greater Houston area had not had a freshly prepared physics teacher in over a decade. Additionally, teachHOUSTON graduates have distinguished themselves by being named recipients of several awards such as beginning teacher of the year awards, district teacher of the year awards, among other distinctions. teachHOUSTON alumni are also serving in a variety of leadership capacities for high-need public school districts. The chapter ends with a discussion of the program's strengths as well as the areas in which it continues to grow. Three new NSF grants allow for continued improvement and transition this work into two additional books proposed in this three-volume series.

While academia continuously probes and advocates for a definition of a comprehensive, inclusive ideal, diversity, multiculturalism, and equity are bridging ties elements that must be considered. Currently, liberal arts colleges have the unique opportunity to shape equitable environments for all their members and become role models for other higher educational institutions. If there is an institutional commitment, and people are willing to work for a common goal, small colleges can undoubtedly offer the appropriate academic conditions where all faculty, staff, and students can achieve their highest personal and professional potentials.

This chapter discusses the role of chief diversity officer (CDO) on liberal arts campuses and how the CDO should take the lead as equity advocator and conveyor and help set the desired dialogue conditions. Among the topics examined is the institutional inclusion process which includes innovative and supportive new ideas and programs for equity among all members of the academic community. Also the hiring of underrepresented faculty members is crucial and can support the growth of enrollment and retention of diverse groups of students. Diversity and inclusion create common goals, and liberal arts colleges should rapidly move to allow the best hiring practices during the recruitment of new faculty members. Equitable learning conditions for all are as crucial as the creation of faculty evaluation systems that promote equitable opportunities. Liberal arts colleges have a historic opportunity to lead the way and become exemplary role models in practicing diversity and inclusion on campus.

This scholarly paper explores leadership education across Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Southwest of the United States. We searched for inclusion of social justice, ethics, and community engagement aspects within leadershipprograms.LeadershipeducationprogramsinhighereducationandspecificallyatHSIsmustbeintentional about offering programs, curriculum, and experiences that adopt inclusion of those who are underrepresented within the leadership realm. While scholarship concerning HSIs as complex organizations has grown, consideration of how leadership education programs contribute to truly serving their unique students is still in its infancy. This inquiry found that there are a number of similarities among leadership programs at HSIs in the way of academic location, degree offerings, and class format, but it also details missing characteristics of social justice, ethics, and community engagement within these areas. We propose that through further examination and future research, a framework of leadership education with underpinnings of social justice, ethics, and community engagement can be beneficial in truly serving underserved and underrepresented student populations specifically at HSIs.

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) possess an advantage in preparing students of color for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce (Gasman & Nguyen, 2014; Upton & Tannenbaum, 2014). It has been suggested that implementing additional strategies to increase the availability, dissemination, and quality of information related to successful HBCU outcomes will allow HBCUs to sustain themselves into the future (Gasman & Nguyen, 2016). We discuss the use and benefits of a novel framework THRIVE Index tool (Byrd & Mason, 2020). THRIVE uses seven dimensions (e.g., Type, History, Research, Inclusion, Identity, Voice, and Expectation) to illustrate best practices of academic pipeline programs and increase the availability of HBCU success outcomes in a comparable format. Academic pipeline programs come in several varieties, but their goal is to propel individuals from one level of the academy to another and into the workforce. Using a common framework like THRIVE also allows for the creation of a clearinghouse of what successfully works for us at HBCUs from the perspective of HBCU pipeline program directors. We describe strategies for how this option for knowledge transfer to stakeholders (e.g. parents, corporations, educational institutions, etc.) can aid in long-term sustainability efforts like recruitment strategies and partnership efforts.