United States

12th Conference on Understanding Interventions 2020

Beyond the GRE: Expanding Student Pathways to Higher Education and Career Success by Walt Jiménez, ETS

UI is excited to announce the rescheduled 12th Annual Conference on Understanding Interventions December 10 & 12, 2020! As you may recall, the original conference scheduled back in March 2020 had to be cancelled due the worsening global conditions, and further declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay tuned for details regarding the virtual conference.

On December 10, 2020 from 12:00-5:00pm (EST), and December 12, 2020 from 11:00am-5:00pm (EST), UI will host the Virtual 12th Annual Understanding Interventions Conference powered by Underline. Attendees will experience plenaries, workshops, symposia, and poster presentations on hypothesis-based research on interventions and initiatives that broaden participation in STEM careers. The conference will continue to facilitate the dialogue among education, behavioral, and social science researchers, evaluators, and faculty in STEM fields who participate in intervention programs. Graduate students in these fields are strongly encouraged to attend. Workshops, sessions, and posters will communicate effective strategies from successful STEM intervention programs, present results from empirical research studies, and synthesize the translation of research findings into practice on STEM learning, undergraduate research, graduate education, and student retention.

technical paper

Summer research programs (SRPs) are a widely used intervention for improving inclusion in STEM research tracks and are particularly important for recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority (UM) students (Ghee, Keels, Collins, Neal-Spence, & Baker, 2016; Pender, Marcotte, Sto. Domingo, & Maton, 2010). A core -element of SRPs is the use of faculty mentorship to assist undergraduate students in developing a strong science identity, research self-efficacy, and to create an authentic research experience for all participating students. However, it is not clear whether and how the quality of faculty mentorship affects the quality of SRPs students’ research. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the relationship between student-reported faculty mentorship quality, measured by the Mentoring Competency Assessment (MCA) score and judges’ ratings of the students’ scientific poster presentations at a summer research symposium. Specifically, we make use of modern data analytic methods to filter over 250 measured characteristics of students. We then use a subset of these indicators to build predictive models of students’ research quality scores. Once we obtain well-fitting predictive models, we analyze the parameter estimates to assess the practical significance of the selected factors related to research quality. Overall, the results of this study provide evidence of a strong positive relationship between the quality of faculty mentorship and the quality of SRPs students’ research, even when controlling for student characteristics known to affect research outcomes, such as science identity and self-efficacy. We also identify interactions between the MCA score and other student characteristics that have practical implications for institutions running SRPs with UM students. We additionally provide evidence about the construct validity of a proposed research quality scale. This study confirms a long-held, but untested belief, that effective faculty mentors produce higher functioning future STEM researchers, and provides additional evidence for a sustained focus on implementing culturally responsive mentor trainings at institutions that offer SRPs to UM students.

Speaker bio:Dr. Angelica Monarrez Postdoctoral Fellow at the NIH-Funded BUILDing scholars at the University of Texas at El Paso. She earned a Ph.D. in Teaching, Learning and Culture with a concentration in STEM education and a masters in statistics from the University of Texas at El Paso. She is particularly interested in investigating ways to broaden participation of Latinx students in STEM higher education, especially those that are first generation college students and are emergent bilinguals by looking at issues of equity and inclusion. She is recently implementing student programs and interpreting qualitative and quantitative data results produced through the training interventions in the program. In addition, she coordinates the peer mentoring program and the summer research program, which looks at ways to recruit and retain students in STEM fields. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters. She has also presented at several prestigious international conferences such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Psychology of Mathematics Education North American Chapter (PME-NA) for which she has been a member for over five years.

Effects of Faculty Mentorship Quality on Undergraduate Students' Summer Research Outcomes

Background: The ASCEND (A Student-Centered ENtrepreneurship Development) Training Model is an NIH-funded initiative at Morgan State University (MSU) to increase diversity in the biomedical research workforce. Unlike the traditional apprenticeship-style research training model, the ASCEND Entrepreneurial Research Training Model (ERTM) involves undergraduate students in active leadership roles in their research projects. ASCEND's ERTM-based interventions are designed to enhance students' sense of science identity, research competency, and peer support, which are predictors of academic success and persistence. 

One of ASCEND's interventions, the Student Research Center (SRC), is an undergraduate student organization that is partially run by student members and has the following main aims: (1) Recruitment and Community Service, (2) Leadership Development, (3) Research Productivity and (4) Graduate School/Academic Preparation. We report on the Health Research Concepts Competition (HRCC), an ASCEND SRC initiative developed to achieve the SRC's aim of research productivity. 

Methods: The HRCC is designed to expose MSU undergraduate students to the real-world research grant application process by simulating it and providing the students with an opportunity to conduct research on a topic of their own choosing about which they are passionate.

The HRCC runs twice a year (one round in the fall semester and another round in the spring) and is open only to members of the SRC. A research associate coordinates the HRCC process and provides technical support to applicants throughout the application process.
Students seeking funding for their research are required to submit an abstract according to the HRCC guidelines established by the SRC. The abstract is submitted along with a literature review/list of references and a project budget. A general information session and a technical assistance workshop are offered to students before the abstract submission deadline. Applicants are also offered the opportunity to get one-on-one support/technical assistance from the research associate as they prepare their abstracts for submission. Each submitted abstract undergoes internal review by two MSU faculty members, after which feedback is provided to the students so they can develop full proposals. At least two external reviews per proposal are then conducted by faculty members from other institutions who are leading researchers in the related field. Based on the HRCC guidelines, each applicant must be mentored by an MSU faculty member and receive step-by-step support to develop their concepts into strong proposals that will lead to a successful application. Grant awards of up to $5,000 are provided per health-related research project and projects are funded for a duration of one year.

Results: Five rounds of HRCC have been conducted since spring semester of 2017, with 45 concepts submitted for internal review. Of these, 18 concepts have been developed into full proposals and reviewed by external reviewers. Sixteen of the externally reviewed proposals have been funded. In terms of dissemination, there have been seven abstracts presented at national/international scientific conferences and one peer-reviewed journal publication. Of the 35 students who participated in the HRCC who have graduated, thirteen have entered into graduate STEM or health-related research programs. 

Conclusion: The HRCC initiative of the ASCEND model exposed students to the real-life grant application process and empowered them to take ownership of their research, thereby making them leaders in their research projects. Participating in the HRCC was instrumental in students' transition into graduate research programs


Speaker bio:Dr. Jummai Apata completed her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from the University of Jos, Nigeria. She completed a Master of Public Health (MPH) from École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP), Paris, France and then a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Her research interests include Public Health, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Community Based Participatory Research, Underserved and Vulnerable populations

Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset Among Undergraduate Student Researchers: The ASCEND Health Research Concepts Competition

Several cross-sectional studies have provided evidence of a dramatic and largely one-way exodus from an interest in academic research careers among biomedical scientists in training. However, new data from the National Longitudinal Study of Young Life Scientists reveal a much more complicated and nuanced picture. Annual interviews with 147 biomedical PhD students conducted from the beginning of the PhD through graduation reveal how differentiation into and away from academic research careers follows many different paths. Over the course of PhD training, as many students shifted towards academic research as shifted away, with no measurable differences across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Almost half (19 out of 39) of those who finished the PhD with the intention to pursue an academic research career had expressed limited or no intention towards this career at the beginning of the PhD. 

This presentation illustrates the factors that influence differentiation into academic research careers. Patterns vary from gradual evolution to an abrupt change at PhD completion. Some cases reflected pivotal events and insights, while others reflected the aggregation of small events and decisions over the years. Understanding and recognizing this complex differentiation process is essential for assisting the development of young scientists. While cross-sectional surveys may point to broad trends across a population at a point in time, longitudinal analysis reveals far more complexity across individuals in career decision-making.

Speaker bio:Christine Wood, PhD is an assistant professor of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

A counter narrative to generalized decline in academic research careers: New insights from longitudinal data

There is increasing interest in assisting graduate students and postdocs in identifying and pursuing a variety of careers with their PhDs. Efforts such as the NIH BEST programs have focused on designing approaches for this level of support. However, to best guide those approaches, it is critical to understand how trainees make decisions during the course of the PhD and postdocs. The way doctoral students make career decisions during and immediately after PhD training is not well understood. 

Based on annual interviews, this presentation displays the career intentions of 147 students from the start of graduate school through graduation. Career intentions are connected across years for each student in order to reveal individual trajectories. While previous research on the "interest," "desirability," or "attractiveness" of careers offer many useful insights, we used qualitative interviews to understand the career intentions of students in each year of the PhD.

The data reveal extensive fluidity and complexity in career decision-making, with most students changing their career intentions several times before gradually differentiating into the career they plan to pursue after graduation. Contrary to cross-sectional studies, these data also reveal: 1) only modest differences across gender and racial/ethnic groups in their intentions to pursue various careers; 2) the total number of students planning to pursue a career as an academic PI is nearly unchanged from the start of PhD to graduation, although individual students moved into and out of this career intention at about the same frequency; and 3) students differentiated into an intended career at various time points over the course of doctoral training. Taken together, these findings offer a new perspective on career decision-making while also cautioning against overgeneralizing results from single-time point, cross-sectional surveys.

Speaker bio:Remi Jones, MA is a research associate with the Scientific Careers Research and Development Group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

A Longitudinal Exploration of Career Differentiation from the Start of the PhD through Graduation

The current challenges in producing and retaining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) talent in the United States to meet workforce demands are well documented in several national reports. For instance, of the college entrants who begin STEM degree programs initially, 48% leave STEM prior to earning an undergraduate degree; nearly half of these by changing to non-STEM majors and the other half of these by leaving college without completing any degree or certificate. This departure rate is even higher for individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM.
Concurrent with examinations of why students fail to persist in college have been the development of programs and strategies aimed at addressing obstacles to persistence and at increasing the number of students earning degrees in STEM. An NSF-funded project at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) implemented Entrepreneurship in Science Education as a strategy to attract and hold students’ interest and academic pursuit of STEM through entrepreneurial thinking and training.
The focus of study is to assess the science mastery skills gained by students due to their participation in the Project and to investigate the specific contributions to the STEM student outcomes due to the unique entrepreneurial training component of the project. Nineteen (19) participants in the Project experienced the entrepreneurial thinking training, and 19 Non-participants identified as comparable through the propensity score matching process. Entrepreneurial thinking was assessed on participants through measures of Entrepreneurial Skills, Managerial Skills, Personal Traits and Technical Skills. Persistence measures were compared between participants and the matched comparison group.
We will present results that show students participating in the engineering design and entrepreneurial training component of the Project significantly improved their science mastery skills, and this contributed to outstanding STEM student outcomes as measured by persistence. The Project was particularly effective with respect to STEM persistence for students who would be categorize as “at-risk,” specifically low SES, first-generation college students from single-parent homes.


Speaker bio:Dr. Caesar Jackson is professor of physics at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). He previously served as dean for School of Graduate Studies, College of Science & Technology, and College of Arts & Sciences. He served 3 years at National Science Foundation in program director and division director roles. His degrees are Bachelor of Engineering Technology in Electrical Engineering (Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University), Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering (University of Florida), and Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (North Carolina State University). Over the years, he has been engaged in nuclear physics research at Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory in Durham, NC and at Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory in Newport News, VA. Currently, he conducts science education research on issues associated with increasing the number of minorities pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). His current work investigates cognitive and non-cognitive factors that influence student’s academic performance in STEM at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Specific studies include: (a) investigating the relationship between self-regulated learning (SRL) and academic achievement of African American undergraduate students in STEM courses at an HBCU; (b) investigating the relationship between science identity and academic achievement of African American undergraduate students in STEM degree program at an HBCU; (c) investigating the impact of active-learning instructional approaches on student learning in STEM courses at an HBCU.

Increasing STEM Persistence of Minority Students Through Entrepreneurial Thinking Experiences

Background: For most people, taking on new roles increases the likelihood of experiencing the impostor phenomenon (IP), defined as feelings of self-doubt about accomplishments and skill competence, and the fear of being exposed as a fraud1. Students in summer research programs may be especially susceptible to IP if they subscribe to the common belief that only brilliant people can succeed in STEM, suggesting a fixed mindset of ability2,3. For students pursuing research careers, having a fixed mindset and experiencing IP more often than others may have a negative impact on developing a strong identity as a scientist, an important predictor of career intention3,4. However, little research has focused on the relationship between IP, mindset, and formation of identity as a scientist, and no study, to our knowledge, has examined changes in trainees’ mindsets and scientist identity following a short-term research experience. 
Purpose: To evaluate the influence of participation in a summer research program in cancer prevention and control; specifically, we examine the degree to which trainees, with low or high IP feelings at entry into the program, reported changes in mindset and in scientist identity by the end of the summer. 
Methods: Summer research program activities included raising awareness about IP and growth mindset throughout, including an interactive workshop on strategies for recognizing and combating IP, a mid-summer senior scientist panel discussion on IP-related experiences, and an end-of-summer workshop to identify barriers and build supports to career advancement. A series of repeated-measures ANOVA was used to examine changes in ability mindset and scientist identity, comparing men and women with either low or high IP feelings at entry into the program. Data for this preliminary analysis were collected from 51 trainees over 2 summers who completed pre- and post-summer online surveys with three IP items1,5 and four mindset items2. 
Results: At entry into the summer program, 6 of 16 men (38%) and 7 of 35 women trainees (20%) were in the high IP group. 
There were no differences in fixed ability mindset between women/men, low/high IP groups, or entry/end of the program. Trainees with low IP at entry had a strong growth ability mindset, regardless of gender. However, men with high IP had significantly lower growth mindset than men with low IP at entry; by the end of the summer, high IP men increased their growth mindset to the same level as men with low IP. Women with high IP did not change their growth mindset by the end of the summer. As for changes in IP, men with high IP at entry had lower IP by the end of the program, but IP feelings for women did not change significantly by the end of the program. 
Women with low IP at entry had stronger scientist identity than women with high IP. Conversely and curiously, men with low IP at entry had significantly lower scientist identity than men with high IP, who had the highest scientist identity of all. Over the short summer experience, scientist identity did not change overall nor by gender. 
Conclusions: Participation in our summer program was effective in helping students increase their growth mindset and decrease their IP feelings after the program, but these improvements varied by both gender and report of IP upon entry. Gains in mindset and scientist identity were greatest for men with initially high IP feelings. These results show that changes can occur even in a 10-week program and with subsequent summer student cohorts, next steps will seek to expand impact across student subgroups.

Speaker bio:Hwa Young Lee, Ph.D., is a program manager of the Cancer Prevention Research Training Program (CPRTP) at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is trained as an educational psychologist with deep expertise in quantitative methods (structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and latent class models) and program evaluation. Her research interests include analysis of factors that influence trainees’ career intentions and promoting under-represented students in academia. In addition, as an insider-researcher, she is interested in helping non-native English-speaking trainees (L2) persist in their careers in academia, as well as helping mentors mentor their L2 trainees. Her favorite hobbies include watching movies, listening to rock music, traveling, eating diverse food, and having a good time with family and close friends.

Research into Action to Diversify the Biomedical and Behavioral Research Workforce: Effects of a summer research program designed to address trainees’ IP feelings and improve their growth mindset

Background: The ability to communicate and disseminate research findings via publications and presentations is widely acknowledged to be critical to trainees’ career success in STEM disciplines1,2. What has been little appreciated until recently, however, is the social, psychological, and cognitive roles that scientific communication skill development and mentoring play in building intention to persist in research careers. Our scientific communication (SciComm) model, adapted from social cognitive career theory, showed that self-efficacy and outcome expectations in SciComm, along with scientist identity, influence trainees’ research career intentions. Active mentoring of SciComm skills influences trainees’ SciComm productivity (writing, presenting, and speaking), resulting in increased career intentions through trainee self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and science identity3. Based on these findings, we developed mentor-training workshops, “Scientific Communication Advances Research Excellence (SCOARE),” as an intervention to provide faculty mentors with strategies and tools for SciComm mentoring. 
Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the SCOARE workshops of the first year were effective in reducing mentors’ self-barriers to mentoring SciComm and in increasing mentors’ self-efficacy in SciComm and research and their actual SciComm skills. In addition, we examined whether these improvements were the same according to race/ethnicity and gender.
Methods: Half-day SCOARE workshops, held in 2018-19 and funded by an NIGMS “Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training” (IPERT) grant, were delivered at 4 sites including Georgia State University in Atlanta, the Gulf Coast Consortia in Houston, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Big Ten in Chicago. In the workshop, mentors learned why and how to help their doctoral or postdoctoral trainees improve their SciComm skills. Moreover, the workshop helped mentors themselves reduce their own barriers and improve their self-efficacy to mentor their trainees by obtaining more and better strategies for SciComm mentoring skills. Mentors who were willing to participate in our research project completed a survey 2 weeks before the workshop and 6 months after the workshop. A series of repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine changes in self-efficacy, in self-barriers, and in mentoring practices before and after the workshop. Gender, race (white vs. non-White), and use of strategies were compared. Of the 60 mentors who registered for the study participation, 46 attended the workshop and completed both surveys. Mentor participants’ responses were collected from four sites (Atlanta, Colorado, Chicago, and Houston) in 2018 and 2019. Among the mentors who attended the workshop, 65% were female, and 67% had been mentoring for more than 7 years; 61% were White. About half of the participants were currently working in basic science.
Results: Repeated-measure ANOVA results revealed that after the workshop, in general, mentors’ self-efficacy and mentoring practices in SciComm had increased, and their own barriers to mentoring SciComm had decreased. These changes were not significantly different by gender or race/ethnicity. Furthermore, mentors who used “adapted new” strategies based on what they learned in the workshop reported increased self-efficacy, improved mentoring practices and satisfaction with their mentoring practices, and a decrease in their own barriers, compared with mentors who continued to use the same strategies.
Conclusions: Preliminary evidence indicates that the SCOARE workshop is helping mentors increase their confidence in mentoring their trainees in SciComm skills and stimulating their engagement in mentoring trainees’ SciComm tasks. Further studies will examine the effects of the workshop on subsequent trainee’ self-efficacy, scientist identity, and career intention. The SCOARE workshop will continue over 5 years at 4 sites and will collect responses from both mentors and their corresponding trainees. 


Speaker bio:Hwa Young Lee, Ph.D., is a program manager of the Cancer Prevention Research Training Program (CPRTP) at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is trained as an educational psychologist with deep expertise in quantitative methods (structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and latent class models) and program evaluation. Her research interests include analysis of factors that influence trainees’ career intentions and promoting under-represented students in academia. In addition, as an insider-researcher, she is interested in helping non-native English-speaking trainees (L2) persist in their careers in academia, as well as helping mentors mentor their L2 trainees. Her favorite hobbies include watching movies, listening to rock music, traveling, eating diverse food, and having a good time with family and close friends.

Effectiveness of the SCOARE workshop designed to improve mentoring skills in scientific communication

Rationale
Our mission as a primarily undergraduate institution is to “provide our students with the world's best undergraduate science, engineering, and mathematics education in an environment of individual attention and support.” To provide further support for our research students and their faculty mentors, we developed a summer Undergraduate Research Community (URC) that provided supplemental workshops to the traditional research experience. These workshops, taught by faculty and staff experts, included topics around general research skills, scientific communication skills, and impostor syndrome. The workshops included lunch in many cases and were designed to promote both social interaction and skill development.
It is generally known from the assessment literature that high-impact practices like undergraduate research experiences can benefit student success (Johnson & Stage, 2018; Kuh, O’Donnell, & Schneider, 2017), and that frequency, intensity, and quality of the experience matter (Hernandez, Woodcock, Estrada, & Schultz, 2018). Furthermore, historically underrepresented students are less likely to participate in undergraduate research and more likely to benefit than majority groups (Kuh, 2008). We wanted to understand the likelihood of participation in the URC program, as well as the impacts of the program on student success indicators to identify areas to broaden participation and increase retention of our underrepresented students.

Design
We used data from 2016-2019 to conduct a quasi-experimental comparison study, comparing students who participated in the URC program with a matched group who did not participate. The overall sample included summer URC participants (n = 43 in 2017, n = 45 in 2018, and n = 35 in 2019, total n = 123 with 6 students who participated during more than one summer) and a control group of all active undergraduate students from Fall 2016-Fall 2019 (n = 1941 unique students) at a Midwestern, undergraduate-focused STEM institution. 
Variables used to model the propensity to participate in the program included sex, race/ethnicity, research program, transfer status, major, year in program, cumulative year-end GPA prior to respective summer term, and first term math grade. The model is adapted from variables established by Hernandez et al. (2018) and includes additional variables of interest (e.g., first term math grade, which is a known predictor of retention at our institution). 
Inverse propensity score weighting was used to control for observed confounding. Inverse weighting was preferred to propensity score matching (Hernandez et al., 2018; Lin, Ninon, & Byrd, 2019) in order to reduce fuzzy matching and retain all treatment samples within the prediction model (Austin, 2011; Rosenbaum & Rubin, 1983; Rubin & Thomas, 1996). We removed students from the model who had a nearly 0% or 100% chance of participating in the URC to reduce weighting bias. 
Student success outcomes included four dichotomous variables: 1) graduation rate less than 6 years, 2) final cumulative GPA greater than 2.0, 3) plans to pursue graduate school or a research position, and 4) plans to join the STEM workforce.

Results/Program Outcomes 
We will share results concerning the likelihood of participation in the URC, as well as how URC participation impacts student success outcomes like graduation rate, final GPA, and placement after graduation. 

Limitations
Other variables of interest include prior research experience, number of URC workshops attended, and prior exposure to course-based research experiences. In the absence of reliable data for these variables, we recommend more systematic data collection to improve the predictive ability of our proposed model. 

References
Austin, P. C. (2011). An Introduction to Propensity Score Methods for Reducing the Effects of Confounding in Observational Studies. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 46(3), 399–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2011.568786

Hernandez, P. R., Woodcock, A., Estrada, M., & Schultz, P. W. (2018). 
Undergraduate Research Experiences Broaden Diversity in the Scientific Workforce. BioScience, 68(3), 204–211. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix163

Johnson, S. R., & Stage, F. K. (2018). Academic Engagement and Student Success: Do High-Impact Practices Mean Higher Graduation Rates? The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 753–781. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1441107

Kuh, G. (2008). High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. Retrieved from Association of American Colleges & Universities website: https://secure.aacu.org/imis/ItemDetail?iProductCode=E-HIGHIMP&Category=

Kuh, G., O’Donnell, K., & Schneider, C. G. (2017). HIPs at Ten. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 49(5), 8–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1366805

Lin, W., Ninon, S., & Byrd, A. (2019, October). Using Propensity Score Matching to Assess Student Success. Conference presentation presented at the 2019 Assessment Institute, Indianapolis, IN. Retrieved from https://assessmentinstitute.iupui.edu/overview/institute-files/2019-institute/handouts-2019.html

Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/70.1.41

Rubin, D. B., & Thomas, N. (1996). Matching Using Estimated Propensity Scores: Relating Theory to Practice. Biometrics, 52(1), 249. https://doi.org/10.2307/2533160


Speaker bio:Dr. Jordan Trachtenberg is the Director of Assessment in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment at Rose-Hulman.

Predictors of Participation and Outcomes for a Summer Undergraduate Research Community (URC)

Building Community and Sense of Belonging Through Faculty-Led Initiatives: The Seed Grants Program at Duke

Sherilynn Black, Jennifer Goins, and Abbas Benmamoun
Duke University

Feelings of inclusion and belonging are key factors in the ability of individuals to persist in academic spaces (Elliott and Healy, 2001). A number of studies indicate that when these feelings are present, individuals demonstrate improved self-efficacy, academic identity and increased personal and professional agency. These feelings also correlate strongly with a positive and affirming institutional climate (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2018) and are important considerations when working to recruit, support, and retain individuals in academia. These issues can be felt more acutely in underrepresented groups, and can play a significant role in their retention in academia (Anderson-Rowland et al, 1999). 

A number of nationally-known programs are designed to heighten inclusion and belonging among students and are shown to be successful mechanisms to promote their persistence towards academic goals. However, such issues are not often a focal point in the professional faculty experience. Many faculty are often encouraged to focus exclusively on items directly correlated with their professional advancement, such as their academic scholarship, teaching, promotion and tenure, grant writing, and mentoring and service. However, faculty experience issues such as job dissatisfaction and isolation just as students do, and data shows that when some faculty disengage from their immediate academic environment or choose to depart, they often cite climate issues as a central reason for their departure (August and Waltman, 2004). Additionally, many institutions focus their efforts and resources on recruiting underrepresented faculty but do not devote nearly as much attention to fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging in all of the spaces that underrepresented faculty must navigate (departments, schools, centers, institutes, etc.) When considering this point in the context of critically low numbers of underrepresented faculty across academic ranks, it is not surprising that many underrepresented faculty who find challenges in academia circle back to these same feelings and issues related to isolation and a lack of inclusion as defining aspects of their professional experiences (Thompson, 2008). 

To address this issue, the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement (OVPFA) at Duke University sought to create opportunities for faculty to increase feelings of engagement in the campus community beyond their scholarship and professional advancement. One such opportunity is the OVPFA Seed Grant Initiative. OVPFA Seed Grants are designed to provide a financial head start for novel faculty-led initiatives that aim to foster a sense of community and promote a welcoming and respectful climate. For the initial calls, faculty were asked to pilot new faculty development ideas or expand currently existing initiatives to include a focus on building networks among faculty, or between faculty and other groups in the Duke community. Over 30 proposals were submitted and 9 were selected. One such program, the Writing, Research and Productivity Group (WRAP), was designed to specifically address issues of belonging and isolation in underrepresented faculty. WRAP utilizes cohort models and functions as an affinity group to connect early-career underrepresented faculty across campus as they work to advance their scholarship and make personal connections within an academic setting. The group engages in publication and grant preparation, peer mentoring, and improves personal support and socialization opportunities for the faculty participants. WRAP also includes write-on-site meetings, writing retreats, and opportunities for cross-engagement and mentoring between junior and senior underrepresented faculty in different disciplines. 

In the 2018-19 academic year 17 total faculty and senior postdocs participated in WRAP, representing 12 disciplines/units across campus. Outcomes indicate high productivity metrics through the submission of papers, grants and conference proposals. Qualitative data indicates that the faculty involved feel more engaged in the campus community and feel closer personal connections to their peers after participating in the group. WRAP has also assisted with the recruitment and retention for underrepresented faculty who seek peer-peer engagement. Some participants indicated that WRAP assisted in the pursuit of their professional leadership goals. Importantly, 75% of the postdoctoral scholars engaged in the WRAP community successfully matriculated into tenure-track faculty positions and cited WRAP as an important factor in their persistence and knowledge of how to navigate the job market (e.g. job talks, campus visits and negotiation process). Together, the data indicate that faculty find opportunities for cohort formation and connection as valuable experiences that increase their feelings of inclusion and belonging, and that these feelings can be linked to their own persistence, scholarship productivity, and engagement with professional networks. Initiatives like OVPFA Seed Grants that provide faculty with the opportunity to both identify the issues that exist in their academic units and propose the solutions to address them can empower faculty, increase their feelings of inclusion, and ultimately lead to improvements in the overall campus climate.

References
Anderson-Rowland, M., Blaisdell, S.L., Fletcher, S.L., Fussell, P.A., McCartney, M.A., Reyes, M.A. and White, M.A., 1999. A collaborative effort to recruit and retain underrepresented engineering students. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 5(4).

August, L. and Waltman, J., 2004. Culture, climate, and contribution: Career satisfaction among female faculty. Research in Higher Education, 45(2), pp.177-192.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2018

Kevin M. Elliott & Margaret A. Healy (2001) Key Factors Influencing Student Satisfaction Related to Recruitment and Retention. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 10:4, 1-11, DOI: 10.1300/J050v10n04_01

Thompson, C. Q. (2008). Recruitment, retention, and mentoring faculty of color: The chronicle continues. New Directions for Higher Education, 2008 (143), 47–54. doi:10.1002/he.312



Speaker bio:Abbas Benmamoun is the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Linguistics. In his role at Duke as Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, he provides leadership, guidance, and oversight of University-wide strategies and programs to support faculty excellence. The office oversees faculty and leadership development programs and partners with Duke schools, departments, and other academic programs to advance faculty careers and enhance faculty success at Duke.
Benmamoun earned his BA from the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, master’s degree from University College London, and PhD from the University of Southern California. He served on the faculty and administration of the University of Illinois and the faculty of the University of Wisconsin and the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies. Benmamoun’s research focuses on the comparative syntax and morphology of natural language and heritage languages, particularly on issues of language maintenance and loss within immigrant communities. His publications include The Feature Structure of Functional Categories: A Comparative Study of Arabic Dialects (Oxford University Press), Arabic Syntax (Cambridge University Press), and The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (Routledge).


Building Community and Sense of Belonging Through Faculty-Led Initiatives: The Seed Grant Program at Duke University

Effective mentorship plays a critical role in the long-term persistence and academic success of trainees (hereafter referred to as ‘mentees’) in research career pathways, making a significant impact on mentees’ research productivity, academic and research self-efficacy, and career satisfaction (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2019). However, many faculty advisors (hereafter referred to as ‘mentors’) may be unaware of or unprepared to address mentor-mentee dynamics that can arise in research advising relationships, especially those that go beyond traditional scientific skill development. Addressing mentorship dynamics can be all the more challenging for mentors working with mentees from underrepresented backgrounds, many of whom will have distinct experiences from their mentors due to the ways in which their race, ethnicity and other aspects of identity can influence interactions within the research and training environment (Butz et al, 2019). Evidence suggests that mentorship that explicitly addresses cultural diversity as well as psychosocial needs of trainees is positively correlated with increases in trainees’ science identity, commitment to a research career, and satisfaction with a research career, particularly those from racial/ethnic groups underrepresented in the sciences (Fresquez & Haeger, 2016). Thus, a critical need in advancing scientific workforce diversity is to increase the capacity of research mentors to effectively navigate cultural diversity matters that often arise in their mentoring relationships.

To address this need in developing a diverse scientific workforce, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is supporting programmatic interventions that focus on addressing institutional, relational and cultural factors and not on trying to “fix” trainees. One program is the Gilliam Fellowship Program
(https://www.hhmi.org/sites/default/files/g20_announcement_091219.pdf). Gilliam Fellows (mentees) are highly competitive pre-doctoral trainees in the biomedical sciences from historically excluded populations who engage in multiple years of research training and professional development activities, guided by faculty research advisors. This program includes an innovative intervention to train cohorts of the research advisors (i.e., mentors) in evidence-based mentorship competencies and cultural diversity awareness. Acceptance of the Gilliam fellowship requires that both fellows (mentees) and their research advisors (mentors) participate in professional development to maximize their working together in support of mentees’ success.

In keeping with HHMI’s focus on not trying to “fix” students, the purpose of this proposal is to report data on outcomes for Gilliam mentors participating in the novel mentorship education and professional development activities. The findings have great potential to inform interventions implemented at both the individual and institutional levels to support the capacity of faculty mentors to optimize their mentorship practices with all students.

Since 2016, faculty mentors in the HHMI Gilliam Program have participated in mentorship education and professional development activities including: (1) foundational and career-stage specific mentee and mentor training that provides knowledge of specific competencies and characteristics of effective mentor and mentee roles; (2) extended training concentrated on building the cultural responsiveness of mentors to address cultural diversity matters in their research mentoring relationship; and (3) targeted work on mentoring relationship dynamics. We will present mentor cohort data that assessed behavioral and attitudinal outcomes, primarily using quantitative data and augmented by qualitative data derived from open-ended survey responses. Overall, results from data analyses revealed that mentors self-reported statistically significant gains in the areas of cultural awareness and communication, with mentors reporting substantial gains in their confidence to engage in conversations around race and culture with their mentees. Mentors also report an increased motivation to incorporate aspects of what they learned throughout the professional development exercises at their home institutions, with 77% planning to make changes in their

mentoring practices after completing the training. Unique to the Gilliam Program that requires parallel mentorship education of mentors and mentees, we collected paired data between Gilliam mentors and fellows to assess alignment in the dyad about their mentorship experiences. Our results revealed that in general there was alignment between mentors’ and mentees’ perceptions of their interactions on most topics including cultural diversity, though one topic emerged as misaligned in the area of career development topics. These data indicate that faculty development activities related to cultural awareness in mentorship not only hold a critical role in increasing faculty knowledge and efficacy in the areas of mentorship and graduate student training, but also hold high potential to improve the experience of both mentors and mentees and the overall climate in their home institutions. These changes can ultimately improve the culture around diversity and inclusion in the biomedical workforce.

Speaker bio:Sherilynn Black is the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, providing leadership in many areas of faculty advancement including support for pre-tenure and mid-career faculty, professional development for non-tenure system faculty, and mentoring. She also leads initiatives to increase diversity among the faculty ranks. Dr. Black is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Medical Education and engages in social neuroscience research on the effectiveness of interventions designed to promote diversity in academia.

Dr. Black previously served as the founding Director of the Office of Biomedical Graduate Diversity for the Duke University School of Medicine and was also a Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Duke Biosciences Collaborative for Research Engagement (BioCoRE). Dr. Black holds several national appointments relating to faculty development and advancement with the NIH, HHMI, AAMC, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and the Society for Neuroscience. She has won a number of distinctions for her research and service, including the Samuel Debois Cook Society award and the Deans Award for Inclusive Excellence in Graduate Education. Dr. Black earned her BS in Psychology and Biology with highest honors at UNC-Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar. She earned her PhD in Neurobiology at Duke University and completed additional studies in the School of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill.



Beyond the GRE: Expanding Student Pathways to Higher Education and Career Success by Walt Jiménez, ETS

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Beyond the GRE: Expanding Student Pathways to Higher Education and Career Success by Walt Jiménez, ETS

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Effects of Faculty Mentorship Quality on Undergraduate Students' Summer Research Outcomes

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Impact of a STEM-focused living and learning community and early research experience on science self-efficacy, identity, and community values

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