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Moderator: Uma Shama, Bridgewater State University
Erica Echols, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Hao Wang, Virginia Tech
The Inclusive Excellence program at Virginia Tech, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, situates science departments and the faculty that comprise them, as the units of change. A key strategy toward creating lasting changes in practices and attitudes that are more equitable and inclusive has been the engagement of faculty as co-creators, rather than adopters, of the STEM reform initiatives. Three practices, in particular, have proven effective: 1) sharing disaggregated student success data with departmental faculty and responding iteratively to their request for more information, 2) empowering departments with the resources to design and implement locally relevant change initiatives, and 3) engaging faculty in regular reflective practices through focus groups and open-ended surveys. This approach has resulted in faculty-initiated shifts from isolated activities to sustainable initiatives and even policy changes such as tenure and promotion guidelines that explicitly address competency in inclusive excellence. In this session, facilitators will share examples of these practices and the ensuing outcomes to build inclusion in undergraduate science programs. Then the participants will engage in an activity to consider their own institutional structures, cultures, and challenges toward inclusion, and map a strategy to implement their own inclusive excellence initiative.