Funded by the National Science Foundation (ED-SYSTEMS, DUE-1644990), the Research & Equity Scholarship Institute investigates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pathways for students who began at community colleges. More specifically, we study how students move and transition across multiple institutions, and the role of minority serving institutions, which are important for students of color in STEM. We are examining these trajectories at the national and regional level with student data, and locally within the San Diego/Imperial County region through interviews with successful students who have navigated community college STEM pathways.

This video focuses on one of our major findings, which centered on the experiences of women of color in STEM. Participant narratives presented here draw attention to inequities that women of color continue to confront within STEM. Further discussions with participants demonstrated the potential for transforming disciplinary and institutional contexts, particularly at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) where STEM undergraduates established strong support networks of women both within and outside of STEM. Building connections with other women of color in STEM, including key mentors in the field, was integral to successful navigation of STEM higher education across multiple institutional contexts among women of color in our study. In our newest project, HSI-STEM (DUE-1832528), we are continuing to deepen our understanding of these critical networks of support at HSIs through interviews with faculty, staff, and administrators directly involved in supporting STEM students of color.

Thank you for your research and sharing the narratives. Some of the Native American Engineering students who we interviewed in our study reported  similar experiences. Both Native American engneering students and faculty talked about important supports needed and/or experienced across multiple institutional, family and community contexts.

Thank you for sharing your project and the narratives of the women. Very powerful! I am wondering how you are working on the idea of the 'critical networks of support' towards developing tools/supports etc?

Thanks for sharing these powerful stories. Can you share more about strategies for overcoming such biases?  Is there a plan in your project to disseminate these stories to assit faculty in recognizing and overcoming bias?

What are some of the factors that contribute to student success?

Does your project hope to encourage these successful young people to persue graduate programs?

Can you tell us some tips on changing instituional culture.

I'd love to share your stories.

 Hi, Angela thank you for your comment! In our data, our participants shared that both women and women of color mentors were easier to build relationships with and were helpful in matters of transitioning from community college to four-year universities; showing how women and women of color in STEM positively impacted the trajectories of our participants. Also, While this project focuses on the experiences of Women of Color in STEM, in our ED-SYSTEMS (DUE-1644990) project we have also been analyzing data on the importance of campus support programs and institutional agents in building critical networks of support. You can check out our digital narrative here were participants share how certain people and/or programs have been a key part of their support networks across different institutional contexts.  Additionally our next project, HSI-STEM (DUE-1832528), we will be collecting data through interviews with faculty and staff to get a better understanding of how they directly support STEM Students of Color.

Thank you for this video.  Unfortunately these experiences are far too common.  We do know that representation matters, so as an intervention are you able to find women or women of color working in the field or in academia to create a small mentoring network or seminar series that increases representation for your students? One place to to connect with is definitely UCSD on this front.  Also, since this issue is directly related to the causes of organizations like SACNAS, do you intend to disseminate your findings there and consult some of the experts there for advice on interventions?

On a separate note, the biases that these students experience is subliminally reinforced in students and other faculty due to a lack of culturally inclusive pedagogy.  Did you interview students about ways they would improve the curricula and the professional development of faculty in this regard?

Hi Stephen, thank you for your comment! Our participants have definitely echoed that women and women of color faculty mentors were a key part of their journey, but we haven't necessarily connected with them to create a seminar series or mentoring network. However, we are designing and implementing a faculty and administration professional development informed by our findings. We have presented at SACNAS before and we look forward to the next time we participate, they have been a great partner in disseminating our findings on our other ED-SYSTEMS projects! 

We didn't interview the students specifically on what they would improve in curricula and professional development, but in our next project HSI-STEM (DUE-1832528) we will be interviewing faculty and staff on how they directly support students which should inform our future professional development.

Very powerful video! I love how you humanize what can seem to be a very abstract (and often hidden) problem not only of underrepresentation but of culture in STEM which makes women of color feel unwelcome. I would like to know more about how such women can be supported in our fields to make them successful. The answers may be uncomfortable for some, involving changing the disciplinary culture, but need to be heard. What is next for your project?

Thank you for posting this great video -- the women you interviewed just nailed what it means to work in a hostile climate.  I am a trained social scientist -- and we can certainly echo many of those experiences, even though our field is now female dominated.  I am wondering what advice you would give young women contemplating entering a (male-dominated) STEM field -- especially in light of the emotional labor it requires, and even was mentioned by one of your interviewees.  As we strive to recruit more women into STEM in a way that broadens participation rather than segregates them in particular fields (e.g., medicine), what does the research tell us about the extent to which disciplinary and organization al cultures actually change when the demographic makeup of practitioners changes?

Hi Gabriela and all

I'd love to see these references distributed to all grad and undergrad programs. I especially like the BUILD PODER one.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC57...

Tell me more about your project with faculty?  Do you show them these videos before interviewing them?  Seems like it might be a powerful tool.

Victoria / Gabriela / All - Thank you for your work. I'm grateful to have stumbled on the video as a I was browsing. Our project deals directly with youth of color earlier in their learning trajectory, and also is about transforming what institutional supports we can build for helping build STEM identity and stronger cultures in k12 for broadening participation.

I found myself wondering whether you all ended up distilling best practices for cultivating successful experiences that resulted in transfer for the young women you worked with? I think that if we can make the case that these things make a difference, then programs in the K12 space could also be replicating and supporting them.

Thanks again!

Here's a link to the project in case you want to take a look:-)