Northwestern University is one of 104 schools that will receive a six-year Inclusive Excellence 3 (IE3) initiative grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The HHMI announcement notes that IE3 challenges U.S. colleges and universities to build capacity for student belonging, especially for those from groups historically excluded from the sciences.
In the U.S., approximately a million college students each year intend to pursue STEM studies, yet only half of those students complete a bachelor’s degree in STEM. Those who leave STEM are disproportionately students who are first in their family to attend college, students who begin at community colleges, and/or students from historically excluded ethnic or racial groups.
With the IE3 award, Northwestern is part of a multi-institution Learning Community Cluster focused on increasing STEM teaching effectiveness. In collaboration with colleagues in the Searle Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and in ongoing consultation with STEM faculty colleagues themselves, Weinberg College will use HHMI’s grant together with matching funds provided by the Provost’s Office to plan and implement a menu of customized inclusive teaching activities, including workshops, for STEM faculty; incentivize faculty to learn, engage with, and adopt inclusive teaching best practices; acknowledge and reward excellence in inclusive teaching, including through such mechanisms as the annual merit review process; and evaluate the effectiveness of these activities on faculty approaches to teaching.
“The goal is for IE3 to complement existing inclusive teaching activities at Northwestern. We will engage the faculty, ask them about their experiences with teaching and what would be helpful, and then build IE3 programming collaboratively based on what we hear. We imagine a menu of things IE3 could do or provide, that would involve a little, a medium amount, or a lot of engagement on the part of faculty who participate,” says Associate Dean for Research at Weinberg College, Catherine Woolley. Woolley, the Lead Applicant and IE3 Program Director at Northwestern, is also the William Deering Chair in Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurobiology.
Additional IE3 core team members are Mary Finn, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs and IE3 Program co-Director; Luke Flores, Associate Director of Weinberg College’s Arch Scholars Program and faculty in the Department of Neurobiology; Bennett Goldberg, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Faculty Director of the Program Evaluation Core; Stephanie Knezz, Assistant Professor of Instruction in Department of Chemistry; and Marcelo Vinces, Weinberg College Advisor and faculty in the Department of Molecular Biosciences.
“Sustaining advances in diversity and inclusion requires a scientific culture that is centered on equity,” said Blanton Tolbert, HHMI’s vice president of science leadership and culture. “In science education, increasing the number of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds must go hand in hand with creating inclusive learning environments in which everyone can thrive.”