SEISMIC Phase One (2019 – 2025)
Overview
SEISMIC began in 2019 with 10 large public research universities. The initial focus of SEISMIC was on parallel data analysis of student outcomes data in STEM courses, coordinated experiments to improve student experiences in the classroom, a continuous exchange of speakers, and extended annual meetings. We call this initial work from 2019-2025 SEISMIC Phase One.
Antiracism
Building equitable and inclusive campuses must begin with admitting that our universities and fields need to change. Universities are important hubs of innovation and knowledge, but they have also been—and continue to be—sites of exclusion, marginalization, and violence. As researchers and educators committed to increasing equity and inclusion in STEM, we must also commit to confronting and combating the racist violences that have been advanced in and through STEM. Put simply, we must actively advance an anti-racist future for STEM education. Institutionally, we affirm that SEISMIC will take concrete action to promote:
1. ANTIRACISM IN POLICY
Individually and institutionally, SEISMIC members have a responsibility to promote antiracist policies across scales—from our departments to our campus, and across our institutions. We commit to learning how STEM courses, including our own, participate in and perpetuate racism. We will act on this learning by implementing antiracist policies and practices—and putting pressure on others to do the same. We must do so in our classrooms, our departments, our institutions, our professional societies, and beyond.
2. ANTIRACISM IN REPRESENTATION
A collaboration that seeks to promote equity and inclusion must work to enact and embody those aims in the present—not merely work toward them in the future. We will use our positions of institutional privilege to honor, elevate, and amplify the contributions of Black scholars and educators, including in our invited SEISMIC Speaker Series.
3. ANTIRACISM IN RESEARCH
The project of promoting equity and inclusion in STEM cannot be colorblind, and it cannot ignore racist inequities. In our scholarship and teaching, we will actively resist explanations for educational inequalities that rely on racist narratives about student deficits. Instead, we will work to identify the structural factors and forces that manufacture inequality—and we will investigate how to counter them.
4. ANTIRACISM IN TEACHING & MENTORSHIP
We will support SEISMIC members in enacting antiracist teaching and mentorship. In our courses and departments, we will be mindful that curriculum sends messages about whose lives and experiences we think matter. As STEM educators, we are responsible for honoring and teaching students about the contributions of Black scientists and other scientists of color—and for drawing attention to the inequities that STEM has reinforced. We will also promote inclusive mentoring practices that support minoritized and marginalized students and colleagues in our fields.
SEISMIC Framework for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity
In Fall 2021 the SEISMIC Task Force proposed the following framework for equity, inclusion, and diversity to be adopted by the collaboration. We have adopted this framework as a guide for the full collaboration, to advance SEISMIC’s efforts toward equity and inclusion both in STEM education and in our collaboration.
“Below we present three concepts – equity, inclusion and diversity. The explanations of these concepts were collaboratively created by the members of the SEISMIC Task Force as a tool to guide our work. This Task Force was commissioned to examine, revise, and create structures of collaboration and research for SEISMIC. SEISMIC, which stands for Sloan Equity & Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses, was created to “improve student experiences in [institutions’] introductory STEM courses” and to build “equitable and inclusive campuses.” Before we started our work, we felt it was essential to define these concepts, which form the foundation of this collaboration, to understand and examine the structures of SEISMIC.
We want readers to note that although we present these three concepts as three separate elements, they are related to one another and depend on each other to function. We also acknowledge that the description of the concepts we present represents the perspectives and understandings of the members of the Task Force. These definitions are informed by our experiences, theoretical training, field expertise, and the historical foundations of our countries and institutions. Our institutions have a historical legacy of indigenous torture and slavery [1]. Our institutions and STEM learning environments also have a history of being exclusive and harmful towards those who are not white, cis-gendered, male, wealthy, able-bodied and Western individuals [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. We see SEISMIC as a vehicle for reckoning with these histories of injustices and through these definitions, we attempt to reimagine how to make our institutions and STEM courses more equitable and inclusive spaces. Finally, we also recognize that these beliefs are not a universal understanding, nor do we expect it to be taken as such. However, we hope it represents the values and aspirations of the larger SEISMIC community” (SEISMIC Task Force Report).
EQUITY
We strive to identify and understand how historical events and systemic inequities (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism, classism, homophobia and transphobia) have caused present day harm and injustice. We aim to combat these injustices by working towards increasing access to resources, eliminating barriers to participation, and identifying and actively disrupting systemic oppression and power imbalances in STEM higher education contexts.
INCLUSION
We aim to create environments where individuals, especially those who have been historically marginalized, feel welcome, heard, and respected, and have the opportunity to safely share their views and be one’s authentic self. A necessary but insufficient condition for inclusion is to break down barriers that inhibit participation by understanding the historic precedents of exclusion.
DIVERSITY
We aim to create a group that acknowledges the richness and diverse perspectives in the backgrounds, life experiences, cultures, and demographic parameters (e.g., race, gender, economic status, sexuality, ability, academic training, and geographical locations) of members who are interested in making introductory STEM courses more equitable and inclusive.
SEISMIC Phase One Mission, Vision, and Values
Mission
Focusing on equity and inclusion as metrics of success, SEISMIC accelerates and enhances efforts to improve large foundational STEM courses across a collaboration of institutions enrolling more than 60,000 new students per year.
Vision
To propel higher education into the next generation of introductory STEM, SEISMIC will set a new national standard for assessing the quality of foundational STEM courses that promotes courses that are inclusive introductions to STEM disciplines and that embody equitable classroom practices.
Values
Building equitable and inclusive campuses must begin with admitting that our universities and fields need to change. SEISMIC’s work is guided by the following values:
- Antiracism – We condemn white supremacy and call for public accountability, justice, and change to reform our undergraduate classes and institutions of higher education. We commit to taking action to promote antiracism in policy, representation, research, teaching, and mentorship on our campuses.
- Community Value – We affirm that all students enter our institutions and introductory courses with resources and funds of knowledge. We believe everyone in our institutions – students, staff, faculty – has valuable contributions to make to our work.
- Commitment to Collaboration – We commit to support, encourage, and enable the successes of our SEISMIC community through collaboration and professional development opportunities.
References
[1] Patton, L. D. (2016). Disrupting postsecondary prose: Toward a critical race theory of higher education. Urban Education, 51(3), 315-342.
[2] Harding, S. (2006). Science and social inequality: Feminist and postcolonial issues. University of Illinois Press.
[3] McGee, E. O. (2020). Interrogating structural racism in STEM higher education. Educational Researcher, 49(9), 633-644.
[4] Reinholz, D. L., & Ridgway, S. W. (2021). Access Needs: Centering Students and Disrupting Ableist Norms in STEM. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(3), es8.
[5] Nicolazzo, Z. (2021). Imagining a trans* epistemology: What liberation thinks like in postsecondary education. Urban Education, 56(3), 511-536.
[6] Scott, J. C. (2006). The mission of the university: Medieval to postmodern transformations. The journal of higher education, 77(1), 1-39.