Ekundayo, thank you for your high praise! 

Seconding all of this!  I smiled the whole way through.  And sent the link to multiple colleagues!

Thank you for your comment! I look forward to seeing your work at the Equity in STEM Community Convening. 

Barry, thank you for your questions. Most of the assessment of our resources is done through evaluation surveys and focus groups. While we have not dropped any of our initial ideas, the feedback we receive from those surveys and focus groups has enabled us to adapt some of our resources/programs so they better serve the community. For example, several of our Virtual Visiting Scholars indicated that having a mentor during their year in the program would be helpful and so we were able to connect our current cohort to members of our Research Advisory Board who can act in that capacity. We also now have a dedicated librarian to manage the ARC Network library and make improvements based on feedback from those evaluation surveys. 

In terms of intersectionality, it is part of our 3 I's framework (intersectional, intentional, inclusive) that we use to guide all of our activities. We apply this critical framework for examining how systems of oppression intertwine to influence experiences and opportunities, not only looking at the intersection of race and gender but including other intersectional identities as well, such as disability, sexual orientation, career stage, STEM discipline, and more. Since marginalization isn't experienced based on just one of our identities, it’s important for us to be intentional and thoughtful in who we’re talking about as we develop and implement new activities. 

Marie, thank you for insightful your comment! You make a great point that we need to create spaces, whether in-person or through a virtual platform, to allow people to connect. I look forward to hearing your insights at the Equity in STEM Community Convening. 

Hi Maia! I'm excited to share more. Interacting with community colleges is a priority of the ARC Network's engagement efforts. A few examples of how we engage community colleges: 1) when we host town halls (such has our town halls on ensuring equity during COVID-19), we prioritize hearing from community colleges to amplify critical issues, 2) we incorporate resources focusing on community colleges in our resource library which contains over 4,000 resources related to equity in STEM, 3) at the end of May 2022, we are co-hosting a webinar with our home organization WEPAN featuring an NSF ADVANCE program focused on University of Hawai'i Community Colleges (https://www.wepan.org/page/HulaPerspective). WEPAN is also pursuing major initiatives to advance equity at community colleges and we hope to share more about those initiatives in the beginning of 2023. Feel free to reach out if you have more questions. (Apologies, I responded earlier, but did not use the "reply" button to respond in thread.)

Thank you for watching and sharing the word about WEPAN's initiative. I look forward to having you join the community and I hope to see you at a future ARC Network event! 

Janet, thank you for your comment and questions! I'm more than happy to share ways Carla can give back. While many of the resources in our digital library are curated, as a member of the ARC Network, Carla can upload her own work or the relevant work of others and can also ask for certain resources or events to be highlighted in our newsletters. 

Additionally, the reports and webinars from our Virtual Visiting Scholars (VVS), and the concept papers that come from our Emerging Research Workshops are also housed in our digital library for members to access at any time, which Carla can contribute to by participating in either of those programs. 

I hope this helps answer your question!