Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: Unpacking a Movement and Sharing Lessons Learned

Poster presented at the 2023 C*Science Association meeting

Poster presented at the 2021 Citizen Science Association meeting

Harris, B.N., P.C. McCarthy, A.M. Wright, H. Schutz, K.S. Boersma, S.L. Shepherd, L.A. Manning, 2020. From panic to pedagogy: Using online active learning to promote inclusive instruction in ecology and evolutionary biology courses and beyond. Ecology and Evolution 10: 12581–12612. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6915 

Emery, N.C., Bledsoe, E.K., Hasley, A.O. and Eaton, C.D., 2020. Cultivating inclusive instructional and research environments in ecology and evolutionary science. Ecology and Evolution. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.7062 

Dawson, E. 2018. Reimagining publics and (non) participation: Exploring exclusion from science communication through the experiences of low-income, minority ethnic groups. Public Understanding of Science 27: 772–786. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662517750072 

Dawson, E. 2014. “Not designed for us”: How science museums and science centers socially exclude low‐income, minority ethnic groups. Science Education 98: 981–1008. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sce.21133 

Dawson, E. 2014. Equity in informal science education: developing an access and equity framework for science museums and science centres. Studies in Science Education 50: 209–247. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057267.2014.957558 

Salerno, P.E., M. Páez-Vacas, J.M. Guayasamin, and J.L. Stynoski. 2019. Male principal investigators (almost) don’t publish with women in ecology and zoology. PLoS One 14: e0218598. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218598

Moss-Racusin, C.A., J.F. Dovidio, V.L. Brescoll, M.H. Graham, and J. Handelsman. 2012. Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 109: 16474–16479. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109 

Madsen-Brooks, L. 2013. A synthesis of expertise and expectations: women museum scientists, club women and populist natural science in the United States, 1890–1950. Gender & History 25: 27–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gend.12010 

Not open access 

Madsen-Brooks, L. 2009. Challenging science as usual: women’s participation in American natural history museum work, 1870–1950. Journal of Women’s History 21: 11–38. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.0.0076 

Using a national longitudinal survey data set from the Higher Education Research Institute, this study tested whether students who identified as a sexual minority (for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer) were more or less likely to persist after 4 years in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as opposed to switching to a non-STEM program, compared to their heterosexual peers. A multilevel regression model controlling for various experiences and characteristics previously determined to predict retention in STEM demonstrated that, net of these variables, sexual minority students were 7% less likely to be retained in STEM compared to switching into a non-STEM program. Despite this finding, sexual minority STEM students were more likely to report participating in undergraduate research programs, and the gender disparity in STEM retention appears to be reversed for sexual minority STEM students.

Hughes, B.E., 2018. Coming out in STEM: factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students. Scientific Advances 4: eaao6373. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373 

de Oliveira Ramalho, M., Decio, P., de Albuquerque, E.Z. and Esteves, F., 2020. Parenting in the field of myrmecology: career challenges in the 21st century. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi-Ciências Naturais, 15(1), pp.27-37. http://editora.museu-goeldi.br/bn/artigos/cnv15n1_2020/parenting(ramalho).pdf 

 LGBTQ STEM professionals were more likely to experience career limitations, harassment, and professional devaluation than their non-LGBTQ peers. They also reported more frequent health difficulties and were more likely to intend to leave STEM. These trends were similar across STEM disciplines and employment sectors. 

Cech, E.A. and Waidzunas, T.J., 2021. Systemic inequalities for LGBTQ professionals in STEM. Science Advances, 7(3), p.eabe0933. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabe0933.abstract 

First empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that a gender-heterogeneous problem-solving team generally produced journal articles perceived to be higher quality by peers than a team comprised of highly-performing individuals of the same gender.

Campbell, L.G., S. Mehtani, M.E. Dozier, and J. Rinehart. 2013. Gender-heterogeneous working groups produce higher quality science. PLoS ONE 8: e79147. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079147 

Ironically behind a paywall. 

Baeckens, Simon, Simone P. Blomberg, and Richard Shine. "Inclusive science: ditch insensitive terminology." Nature 580, no. 7802 (2020): 185-186. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01034-z 

Genome Biology spoke with three openly LGBT+ researchers on their experiences in biology.

Barr, B., B. Montague-Hellen, and J. Yoder. 2017. Coming out: the experience of LGBT+ people in STEM. Genome Biology 18: 62. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-017-1198-y 

Tseng, M., R.W. El-Sabaawi, M.B. Kantar, J.H. Pantel, D.S. Srivastava, and J.L. Ware. 2020. Strategies and support for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in ecology and evolutionary biology. Nature Ecology & Evolution 4: 1288–1290. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1252-0 

O’Brien, L.T., H.L. Bart, and D.M. Garcia. 2020. Why are there so few ethnic minorities in ecology and evolutionary biology? Challenges to inclusion and the role of sense of belonging. Social Psychology of Education 23: 449–477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-019-09538-x 

McGill, B.M., Foster, M.J., Pruitt, A.N., Thomas, S.G., Arsenault, E.R., Hanschu, J., Wahwahsuck, K., Cortez, E., Zarek, K., Loecke, T.D. and Burgin, A.J., 2020. You are welcome here: considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion for embracing new ecologists.https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202011.0342/v1 

Marín-Spiotta, E., R.T. Barnes, A.A. Berhe, M.G. Hastings, A. Mattheis, B. Schneider, and B.M. Williams. 2020. Hostile climates are barriers to diversifying the geosciences. Advances in Geosciences 53: 117–127. https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-53-117-2020 

Lee, D.N. 2020. Diversity and inclusion activisms in animal behaviour and the ABS: a historical view from the U.S.A. Animal Behaviour 164: 273–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.03.019 

Jimenez, M.F., T.M. Laverty, S.P. Bombaci, K. Wilkins, D.E. Bennett, and L. Pejchar. 2019. Underrepresented faculty play a disproportionate role in advancing diversity and inclusion. Nature Ecology & Evolution 3: 1030–1033. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0911-5