RIOS Institute

The Society for the Advancement of Education Research (SABER) held its annual meeting at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. This year, SABER has made a greater effort to attend to cultivating an authentic culture of equity-mindedness in order to a) improve the experience of all SABER attendees, but particularly those from historically marginalized groups, b) provide an example of a equity-minded academic professional society and c) connect the field of biology and biology education research to broader initiatives around social progress. Two key things occurred this year. First, the Place-Based Committee, chaired by SABER President Dr. Miriam Segura of the University of North Georgia invited and graciously hosted a plenary speaker from the greater Minneapolis community. 

Justice Jones is the Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and has been doing social justice activism in Minneapolis through the arts and constructive dialogue for over a decade. In her plenary, Justice talked about the historical cycle of violence, and the power we have to break that as academics if we are willing to bravely think differently about how our teaching can provide agency and capital to our students. The second key thing was that SABER received an NSF award from the BIO-LEAPS program (RIOS Director Bryan Dewsbury is a co-PI) the aim of which is to work on the culture of SABER, and develop strategies to attract more diverse participants to the society. The leadership of SABER and Director Bryan Dewsbury is hopeful that place-based programming will continue to grow, and be a model for how academic communities can engage in authenticity and humility in the places we carry out our practice.