Meet the President-Elect of the MAA!
By Tim Chartier & Jenna Carpenter
Earlier this year, frequent Math Values contributor Tim Chartier sat down with MAA President-Elect Jenna Carpenter to discuss her work increasing the participation of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM and her tips for creating more inclusive and welcoming institutions, departments, and classrooms.
TC: You are noted nationally for your work in broadening participation in STEM. Can you describe your work in this area?
JC: Most of my work has focused on creating a culture of success for women students, faculty, and staff in STEM fields, although in the last few years I have also worked on efforts to increase academic success and sense of belonging for historically underrepresented student groups more broadly. We have had good success with all of these efforts, primarily because we have focused on using evidence-based practices.
TC: When did you become interested in working in broadening participation in STEM and what initial steps did you take toward broadening participation?
JC: By the time I approached mid-career and began to take on leadership roles, I realized that there was a lot going on “under the surface” which was impacting my career and success and about which I was not well-versed. So I began to educate myself about what the issues were, what the research said, and strategies for managing these issues. From there, I became involved in an organization called WEPAN (Women in Engineering ProActive Network) which greatly accelerated my own learning and opportunities to get involved and make a difference!
TC: What tips do you have regarding best practices in broadening participation?
JC: I always suggest first educating yourself about the issues, then looking for evidence-based practices to help you address the challenges you are seeing. We have learned a lot in recent years about how to better (and more accurately) market STEM, how to foster a sense of belonging in our students, and how to build supportive communities for them. For example, help your students understand the breadth of careers that a STEM major prepares you for, avoid stereotypical images and descriptions of STEM (which aren’t accurate), use good teaching practices that support student success and foster collaboration instead of competitive weed out approaches, make sure students have a wide range of role models, and educate your students about topics like unconscious bias and stereotypes which are not only harmful but which almost always are opposite our intended values.
TC: Do you see inclusive and welcoming practices in teaching versus research as different? If not, can you explain? If so, in what ways?
JC: No! I partnered with ERVA (the NSF-funded Engineering Research Visioning Alliance) as part of an NSF grant to conduct a survey of engineering students – undergraduate, graduate, post-docs, including some students with community college experience – to find out what we could do collectively to better support their success. We recruited a very diverse group, not only in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, but students from different parts of the country, different institutions and different engineering disciplines. The results were the same for students at all levels, both the classroom and the research group. They told us that access to and the ability to be part of an inclusive engineering community of peers, faculty, staff, and student organizations was key to their success. They talked about needing supportive professors and relatable peers and faculty. They noted that imposter syndrome (pervasive feelings of self-doubt regarding intelligence and achievement), feelings of inadequacy, and a lack of respect all undermined their efforts to be successful.
TC: If I want to take steps to broadening participation in my work, what steps do you suggest taking to move in a more inclusive, welcoming direction?
JC: As I noted above, I would suggest both educating yourself about the key issues in broadening participation, along with evidence-based strategies for navigating around them. You really have to start with unconscious bias, stereotypes, and microaggressions since they underpin virtually everything we do which hinders our efforts to be more inclusive. Next, I would suggest learning about asset versus deficit mindsets and thinking, since most of us have spent at least part of our careers in a deficit-based environment. There is also some great research about how to rethink grading so that it fosters learning which can be helpful, particularly for students who may not be familiar with college, the associated expectations, or how to study or prepare. Lastly, I would suggest learning about ways to build a sense of belonging among your students. Many of the recommendations we saw from students in the ERVA focus group centered around a sense of belonging.
Regarding resources, there are so many great things to recommend. Two of my favorites are “Why So Few” and the “Solving The Equation” report by AAUW. While these are older resources, they do a great job of explaining what the issues are, supported by accessible research examples. They both focus on women in STEM fields, but the issues are largely the same for other historically underrepresented groups. And since we have made so little progress in the last 2-3 decades, they are really still pretty current. A newer resource that I really like (which comes with a great graphic) is from the American Society of Plant Biologists.
TC: If my department or college wants to take steps to broadening participation in our classes and major, what steps do you suggest taking to move in a more inclusive, welcoming direction?
JC: I would focus on building a sense of belonging and strong community with your students from the day they land on campus. We at Campbell use every evidence-based strategy I know of to do this, from assigning peer mentors to reflective writing activities to hosting a STEM living-learning community for first-year students and teaching a curriculum that builds strong student teams across courses. We also have eight values – one of which is community – that we have woven into everything we do. Together, these efforts have been successful! If you stop one of our majors at random and ask them their favorite thing about our program, they will say our supportive community first, followed by our hands-on, team-based, project-based curriculum. As we can see that the friendships students make while they are here last long after they graduate and move away.
As for resources, I just finished an ACUE (Association of Colleges and University Educators) course on fostering a sense of belonging that I would highly recommend. One of their resources from NSSE (the National Survey of Student Engagement) contains lots of great information. We had Dr. Peter Felten from Elon University on our campus this fall to talk about his book “Connections Are Everything: A College student’s Guide to Relationship-Rich Education” so I would recommend it as a great read, as well.
TC: Any parting suggestions?
JC: The importance of attracting, educating, and graduating the STEM talent that exists in our country should be a no-brainer. But despite a large amount of effort, we have struggled for decades to do so. Unfortunately, time has run out. From where I sit at the national level given the impending demographic decline, we have to figure out how to successfully broaden participation in STEM fields. Our economy, our competitiveness on the world stage, our national security – these all depend on having a robust STEM workforce. If we don’t get out there, drum up and nurture interest in STEM fields, then admit and educate those students (whether or not they have enjoyed the pre-college opportunities that result in their arriving on our doorstep well-prepared), we will all pay a steep price.
Jenna Carpenter is the President-Elect of the MAA. She is also the Founding Dean and Professor of the School of Engineering at Campbell University, the Immediate Past President of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and a past president of WEPAN (Women in Engineering ProActive Network). Dr. Carpenter is a national expert and thought leader on issues impacting STEM education, innovative STEM curricula, as well as student success of diverse communities of students, faculty, and staff in STEM fields, particularly issues impacting the success of women.
Tim Chartier is the Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College, specializing in numerical linear algebra and data analytics. He consults for businesses and organizations, including ESPN, the New York Times, the US Olympic Committee, and professional sports teams. He’s received national awards for his teaching and research. Tim has also engaged in K-12 education initiatives with Google and Pixar.