2021-2022 Events
Please see below for our schedule of events for 2021-2022. These events include talks organized by SEISMIC and SEISMIC institutions, as well as events SEISMIC is co-sponsoring, and are open to anyone interested to attend. For more information, please contact our Speaker Events Bureau at seismic.speakers.bureau@umich.edu
Thursday
Sept. 16
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“Understanding oppression faced by Asian Americans”
Speaker: Sapna Cheryan, PhD, University of Washington
Different racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. have been subordinated in different ways. This work integrates a dimension of cultural foreignness (Zou & Cheryan, 2017) along with the more commonly studied dimension of perceived status to understand forms of prejudice faced by Asian Americans. Using controlled laboratory and field experiments, self-generated discrimination experiences, and U.S. court cases, I will demonstrate Asian Americans’ perceived positioning as high status and culturally foreign in U.S society and consequences for the forms of discrimination they face. I will further provide experimental evidence that discrimination-based cultural foreignness may be seen by White Americans as less harmful than other forms of discrimination. This work moves beyond a “one size fits all” approach to discrimination to document the distinct forms of discrimination faced by Asian Americans in U.S. society and the accompanying challenges in addressing these forms of discrimination.
Thursday
Oct. 21
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“The meaning beyond the words: How language, race, & culture impact science teaching & learning”
Speaker: Bryan Brown, PhD, Stanford University
This presentation explores how race, culture, and language intersect to create the condition of contemporary learning. For years, research on the language of classrooms explored how the way we say things impacts students’ sense of belonging. Despite this research, STEM education has failed to adequately explore how issues of race, language, and culture shape the outcomes of teaching and learning in science. Through a sequence of research, this presentation explores the theoretical and pragmatic aspects of this dilemma. From a theoretical perspective, the talk will explore the Language-Identity dilemma. As students learn, the way academic language is taught to them can present a cognitive and cultural conflict. From a cognitive perspective, if science is taught without respect to the implications of how language is learned, students can be misunderstood and misunderstand the teacher’s complex discourse. From a cultural conflict perspective, students may feel they are cultural outsiders when the language of the classroom positions them as outsiders. The presentation provides an overview of a series of qualitative and quantitative experiments that document the realities of this complex interaction.
Thursday
Nov. 18
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“Mapping the terrain of othering: Religious, gendered, and racial exclusion on historically white campuses”
Speakers: Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad, PhD, Muslim Wellness Foundation (top) & Kean M. Mcguire, PhD, Arizona State University (bottom)
On historically white campuses, too often conversations related to human diversity are most concerned with increasing cultural appreciation and awareness for non-dominant groups. Relatedly, discussions of inclusion for marginalized individuals focus on perceived economic, social, and cultural deficiencies of underrepresented students. However, these approaches often fail to interrogate the ways institutions are structured – both physically and intellectually – to exclude religious, gender, and racially minoritized students. Drawing on our work and research with Black students from various religious and spiritual backgrounds, we will make visible the various ways in which Whiteness, Christian hegemony, and heteropatriarchy work, and how we might respond in ways rooted in equity and justice.
Thursday
Jan. 20
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“Effective, culturally responsive mentorship”
Speakers: Angela Byars-Winston, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Effective mentorship matters in the talent development of future STEM professionals. Effective mentorship includes being culturally responsive to the differing social identities of trainees, especially related to racial and ethnic identity. This session will highlight supporting research on the facilitative role of culturally responsive practice and its relevance to mentorship of STEM trainees.
Thursday
Feb. 10
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“Reframing equity in STEM education with historically minoritized communities: Seeding rightful presence”
Speaker: Edna Tan, PhD, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
This talk explores the inadequacy of framing equity in STEM education merely as inclusion into the established culture of canonical STEM reflexive solely of the epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies of White middle-class heteropatriarchy. I introduce the framework of Rightful Presence as an approach to more critically, 1) survey the terrain of inequities in STEM education for minoritized populations as historical, systemic, and enduring that are manifested in particular, local ways, and the role of fostering more expansive epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies in disrupting such inequities; 2) highlight the need to consider the temporal arc – past, present, future – of how minoritized youth engage with STEM across spaces as negotiated through particular social-spatial relationalities; and 3) consider what is entailed in terms of the design of justice-oriented STEM learning environments and pedagogical approach, to expand the epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies of STEM to be reflexive of historically underrepresented Youth of Color and minoritized groups in STEM.
Thursday
March 17
12 pm EST
Sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and co-sponsored by the SEISMIC Collaboration, and the ASU RISE Center.
“Creating a culture of access in academic biology: A focus on disability”
Speaker: M. Remi Yergeau, PhD, University of Michigan
(Description coming soon).