Resource Library

INCLUDES Alliance awards fund partnerships across higher education

The initiative brings together USC Rossier and more than two dozen other organizations.

Our IGEN Project Quarterly Newsletter highlights the work being done by our alliance members and partners.

Featured in this issue:

• Supporting Graduate Student Well-Being
• IGEN Bridge Application 
• Partner Updates
• Equity in Graduate Admissions

New programme aims to boost the number of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in science

A set of role-play, avatar modules to educate faculty, staff, and students about mental health and suicide prevention.

The APS Bridge Program Student Induction Manual documents effective practices for inducting new students into graduate programs, as identified and described by APS Bridge Sites. It also includes specific strategies for developing a solid foundation for students before and well after their arrival on campus.

Download the full Induction Manual

Presentation addressing recruitment and admissions challenges facing graduate education in light of COVID-19.  The panelists will present research and institutional responses that, together, highlight paths for administrators and faculty toward equitable enrollment management. How should we communicate with incoming and prospective students given universities’ quickly changing policy landscape? How can we design holistic review processes that account for new variations in applicant grades, experiences, and obstacles during this time? 

Crises are moments for culture building. During this time we are learning that connections, communication, and critical conversations matter more than ever. As we think about preparing our institutions for annual graduate admissions and recruitment processes, awareness about our respective institutional contexts and individual identities matter. Context and identity matter on their own, and they matter in combination by affecting the resources likely available to us, the constraints and norms we are more likely to face, and the networks of which we are part.

Webinar and discussion session presenting data and research about the role of typical admissions criteria and practices in maintaining racial/ethnic inequalities in graduate education. Practical strategies for rethinking typical admissions criteria and processes are introduced, with a focus on equity-based holistic review and embedding attention to equity throughout the admissions and recruitment process. 

Current Data to support the charge of the IGEN Project and its measured success.

Presentation on how Physical Sciences Bridge Programs affected the participation rates of Underrepresented Minority (URM) in graduate degree programs.

Conference poster.  

Presentation on the benefits of diverse leadership in business and how IGEN goals look to increase the participation gap. 

Research and reports about transforming undergraduate STEM education highlight the need to implement research-based practices and to learn from that process, expanding the research base.

Presentation on how the APS Bridge program works to decrease the achievement gap in doctoral education for underrepresented minority students in Physics degrees.   

Presentation on the efforts to increase diversity in graduate education, and providing practical strategies for doing so by rethinking typical recruitment and admission processes. Including how common admissions mindsets and practices inhibit access for underrepresented groups, and concrete strategies to change admission processes to yield improved diversity and equity.

Presentation on IGEN at NSF Includes: Journey to an Alliance webinar, a series designed to introduce the network to the NSF INCLUDES Alliances and learn about the successes, challenges and lessons learned about launching their partnerships and backbone organizations. 

Workshop presentation by Dr. Melissa McDaniels from Michigan State University, graduate student and postdoctoral participants will be urged to think about the proactive roles they can play in ‘mentoring up’ – strategically and authentically negotiating their constellation of mentoring relationships. Using this lens, participants will be brought through a series of guided conversations and exercises to help them thing about how they might ‘map’ their mentoring networks, anchored by professional competencies, to empower themselves to optimize all mentoring relationships.

Presentation on project goals and activities of the NSF INCLUDES Alliance grant awarded to the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN). 

High quality mentoring is an important predictor of persistence for researchers pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and can influence the confidence of historically underrepresented trainees' ability to successfully conduct research. Despite this, mentors typically do not receive any training on how to optimize their mentoring relationships. Stories from student mentees from historically underrepresented backgrounds will be shared to learn from their perspectives. Mentors will learn new approaches from each other as they work through mentoring challenges, reflect upon their mentoring experiences, and refine their individual approaches to mentoring. Workshop leaders will provide concrete tools and strategies mentors can incorporate into their practice and extrapolate to their own context. Participants are expected to gain confidence in proactively working with students from diverse backgrounds. See Key Strategies for Mentoring Parts I and II.

Discussion with faculty and staff, touching on various aspects of the mentoring experience, including work-life balance concerns. The focus is on discussing the mentoring relationship in graduate school, building mentoring relationships, and supporting students' growth. 

Workshop Presentation: High quality mentoring is an important predictor of persistence for researchers pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and can influence the confidence of historically underrepresented trainees’ ability to successfully conduct research. Despite this, mentors typically do not receive any training on how to optimize their mentoring relationships. In this interactive workshop, mentors will engage in case studies, activities and small-group discussions aimed to accelerate the acquisition of the mentoring skills and insights needed to cultivate effective mentee-mentor relationships. In part II of this interactive workshop, mentors will discuss the challenges of accurately assessing understanding and providing constructive feedback. Mentors will also discuss ways to foster mentee independence and build their research self-efficacy. Through the workshop, participating mentors will learn new approaches from each other as they work through mentoring challenges, reflect upon their mentoring experiences, and refine their individual approaches to mentoring. Workshop leaders will provide concrete tools and strategies mentors can incorporate into their practice and extrapolate to their own context. Through this process, participants are expected to gain confidence in proactively working with students from diverse backgrounds.

Worksop Presentation: High quality mentoring is an important predictor of persistence for researchers pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and can influence the confidence of historically underrepresented trainees' ability to successfully conduct research. Despite this, mentors typically do not receive any training on how to optimize their mentoring relationships. In this interactive workshop, mentors will engage in case studies, activities and small-group discussions aimed to accelerate the acquisition of the mentoring skills and insights needed to cultivate effective mentee-mentor relationships. In part I of this interactive workshop, mentors will discuss the challenges of misaligned expectations and explore the use of mentoring compacts to convey expectations in a transparent and equitable manner. Mentors will also complete a communication style inventory and explore ways to optimize communication in their mentoring relationships. Through the workshop, participating mentors will learn new approaches from each other as they work through mentoring challenges, reflect upon their mentoring experiences, and refine their individual approaches to mentoring. Workshop leaders will provide concrete tools and strategies mentors can incorporate into their practice and extrapolate to their own context. Through this process, participants are expected to gain confidence in proactively working with students from diverse backgrounds.

Mentoring is an important factor in the satisfaction, productivity and persistence of mentees across disciplines yet research shows that the landscape of mentoring is unequal. Mentees from traditionally underrepresented groups (UG) report less access to mentoring and rate the mentoring they do receive lower in quality. Moreover, mentees from UGs more frequently report feeling a sense of isolation in their research environments and pressure to hide their cultural identities while at work. Mentors of these diverse mentees report uncertainty about if and how to broach topics of belonging, diversity and inclusion in their mentoring relationships. In this plenary session, we will explore the concept of culturally aware mentoring. Following a brief introductory presentation, four mentees will share insights gained from their lived experience; how they are navigating their science and cultural identities and how mentoring has played a role in their educational path. Each panelist will address the following questions: •What has worked for you in your mentoring relationship overall? •What did not work so well? •Around the topic of culturally aware mentoring: Have you been able to share salient aspects of cultural identity (-ies) with your mentor and/or your research team members? Why or why not? •What approaches have mentors used to demonstrate their support of you and all of your identities? How have they or could they demonstrate their cultural awareness in this regard?

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is one of five leading scientific societies that have formed the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) to increase the participation of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in graduate studies in the physical sciences.

The American Institute of Physics aims to double the number of black undergraduates in the field.

Conference brings together champions of diversity and inclusion to increase the number of under-represented minority students earning PhDs.

This article examines the ways diversity is framed at schools with race-neutral admissions policies.

© 2019 American Psychological Association

In March of 2019, William Rick Singer plead guilty to federal conspiracy, bribery and obstruction of justice charges for his work as an academic admissions “fixer.” Following an FBI sting, Singer admitted to bribing college admissions staff, getting ringers to take ACT and SAT tests, and fabricating athletic resumes, all on behalf of the offspring …

2019 Back Porch Broadcasting, Inc.

The American Physical Society’s Bridge Program increases the output of doctorates awarded to underrepresented graduate students in the physical sciences.

A team of researchers led by Rochester Institute of Technology Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Casey Miller completed a multivariate statistical analysis of about one in eight physics Ph.D. students from 2000 to 2010.  They discovered that while women and underrepresented minorities tend to perform worse on the GRE Physics Subject Test, students’ performance had no bearing on Ph.D. completion. Undergraduate GPA was the most robust predictor of Ph.D. completion they found. 

The University of Maryland's Graduate School hosted the first-ever East Coast Holistic Review Institute (HRI).  Led by Drs. Julie Posselt and Casey Miller...Holistic review aims to improve the diversity of graduate student populations and to help ensure that those who enroll stay in their programs and succeed. 

Exams that US students need to take before being allowed into graduate school are not a reliable way of assessing whether those candidates will successfully complete a PhD. That is the claim of new research, which shows that the over-reliance on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in PhD admissions also discriminates against under-represented groups. The study has been carried out by a team led by Casey Miller — a physicist from the Rochester Institute of Technology — who analysed data for almost 4000 students who entered physics PhD programmes between 2000 and 2010, representing around 13% of doctoral enrolments during that period.

Researchers are urging universities across the United States to find a new way to identify the next generation of scientists. A new study discovered that traditional admissions metrics for physics Ph.D. programs such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) do not predict completion and hurt the growth of diversity in physics, which is already the least diverse of the sciences.

The American Chemical Society has been awarded a $2.3 million grant over five years from the National Science Foundation as part of an alliance of scientific societies to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in graduate education in the physical sciences. The Inclusive Graduate Education Network is a five-year, $10 million grant led by the American Physical Society (APS). 

APS has joined forces with four other scientific societies—the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the Materials Research Society—to increase participation of underrepresented students in graduate physical science programs. The five societies make up the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) that will be funded with a five-year $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Rochester Institute of Technology is helping to build a national network for improving access to graduate education for underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

APS has joined forces with four other scientific societies—the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the Materials Research Society—to increase participation of underrepresented students in graduate physical science programs. The five societies make up the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) that will be funded with a five-year $10M grant from the National Science Foundation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued new awards that represent the next major step for its NSF INCLUDES program -- the development of a national network to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by broadening participation in those disciplines.

Dr. Catherine Mader of the Hope College physics faculty is part of a collaboration led by the American Physical Society (APS) that has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create and administer a nationwide, five-year effort that seeks to increase participation in careers in the physical sciences by women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities by helping more pursue graduate education.

Field research and training create unique environments that can both reinforce and make invisible existing power dynamics, with the potential for abuse. In this interactive session we will discuss and practice strategies to reduce the likelihood of abusive behaviors such as bullying and harassment as well as how to respond when they do occur, with a focus on field environments. For more information visit the ADVANCEGeo resources on field work.

Abstract

Historically, access to education in the U.S. has not been equitable. Furthermore, intersectionality, the interaction of multiple identities, results in educational experiences that vary widely for diverse groups of students with implications for the recruitment of future students. To better understand barriers to ethnic/racial minority students participating in graduate education a study has been conducted through the APS Bridge program, a program designed to increase the number of ethnic/racial minorities earning PhDs in physics. In phase one of this study, we analyzed student responses to an application question regarding why they chose not to apply to graduate physics programs. To further understand the barriers identified in the first phase of this study, we interviewed nine participants in the 2016 Cohort of the APS Bridge program. The results of this study have implications for a variety of stakeholders interested in broadening participation in graduate physics education.

Topic

Graduate programs, not just undergraduate colleges, need to think about whether they need standardized admissions tests and whether they are using them in appropriate ways.

Abstract

Privileging elite academic pedigrees in graduate admissions preserves racial and socioeconomic inequities that many institutions say they wish to reduce. To understand this preference, I integrate across perspectives on trust in rational choice, social capital, and social network theories, and use the resulting framework to interpret 68 interviews with faculty reflecting on graduate admissions. Individual and institutional trust networks enable faculty to invest in students' uncertain futures, with trust especially important for interpretations of transcripts and letters of recommendation. I discuss trust networks' consequences for admissions, how they can be expanded, and their relevance for future higher education research.

Abstract

The University of Georgia has operated under a voluntary “race-neutral” admission policy for the past 2 decades. Using frame analysis theory, we examine university documents and interview data from 11 campus administrators responsible for diversity efforts to understand how diversity is framed at the institutional and individual levels post-affirmative action. We compare our findings to the broader sociolegal discourses around diversity to present points of convergence and divergence among frames. We find official university framing of diversity has broadened over time to include numerous characteristics, while administrators hold divergent frames depending on their functional area, philosophy, and personal experience. We conclude that divergent frames may reflect and contribute to the challenge of advancing a coherent set of diversity efforts in a post-affirmative action context, where the place of race in institutional policy is muted. As more institutions consider admissions policy devoid of race to avoid protracted legal struggles, it may be especially important for institutions and administrators responsible for diversity efforts to be explicit with one another and with those whom they hire about how they will continue seeking racial equity.

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Originality/value

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.

Abstract

Recent research suggests that faculty reliance on graduate record examination (GRE) scores early in the graduate admissions review disproportionately limits access to doctoral education for women, Black, Latinx, and Native American students. However, some faculty do engage in more holistic review−and in so doing, weigh diversity−when evaluating applicants on a short list. This paper has three objectives: to test the prevalence of this two-stage review process; to examine whether the factors associated with an applicant's selection to a short list differ from those associated with receiving an admission offer; and third, to assess implications of admissions preferences for equitable access. We conducted fixed-effects logistic regression using application-level data from six large, selective physics programs who participated in a project piloting means to increase diversity in physics. We found that faculty in these programs indeed placed a premium on standard evaluation metrics in the first round of review. Women are more likely than men to both make the short list and be admitted, whereas Black and Latinx applicants do not have significantly higher odds than white students of moving forward in the admissions process, all else equal. Our findings add weight to a rising tide of evidence that faculty must revisit the narrow framing they have traditionally used in the admissions process to increase diversity in their graduate programs.

Abstract

We present findings from a case study of a psychology department that has graduated a significantly higher share of underrepresented doctoral students than national averages for its discipline. Using the campus racial climate framework, we found that organizational/structural diversity initiatives (recruitment and admissions practices), presented a positive image of the department's commitment to diversity to prospective students that diverged considerably from the climate and mentoring relationships students experienced once they matriculated. We compared this to a "bait and switch" phenomenon and considered the consequences for students' success and wellbeing, as well as the ability to sustain diverse student enrollment.

Abstract

This study aims to understand the effectiveness of typical admissions criteria in identifying students who will complete the Physics Ph.D. Multivariate statistical analysis of roughly one in eight physics Ph.D. students from 2000 to 2010 indicates that the traditional admissions metrics of undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Quantitative, Verbal, and Physics Subject Tests do not predict completion as effectively admissions committees presume. Significant associations with completion were found for undergraduate GPA in all models and for GRE Quantitative in two of four studied models; GRE Physics and GRE Verbal were not significant in any model. It is notable that completion changed by less than 10% for U.S. physics major test takers scoring in the 10th versus 90th percentile on the Quantitative test. Aside from these limitations in predicting Ph.D. completion overall, overreliance on GRE scores in admissions processes also selects against underrepresented groups.