SCS DEI Update
Sep. 17, 2021
Creating a Welcoming Academic Environment
Academic environments can feel unwelcoming for individuals from underrepresented groups.
Research has shown that when students from underrepresented groups are placed in a welcoming academic environment, they increase their identification as a member of an academic community, and have decreased concerns about stereotyping.
There is a growing body of research on what types of interventions can contribute to a welcoming academic environment. These can include pedagogical approaches, curricula and even syllabi as places to help with the integration of DEI by communicating and demonstrating philosophy, practices and expectations. The most successful interventions may differ by course modality, as performance gaps have been shown to exist between online and face-to-face courses. Some research has shown that black students, male students, younger students and students with lower GPAs feel the least welcome and have the greatest academic decline in online classroom settings. Additionally, some research has shown that "Zoom fatigue" is more pronounced for women due to heightened self-presentation concerns. Other research shows that online learning environments present great opportunities to develop more inclusive learning environments.
Here are some ideas for making equity and inclusion a priority in the classroom routines and environments.
- Form authentic relationships and connections with students. This might be especially hard to do in online settings, but we should strive to understand our students and accommodate different interests and learning styles. Empathy is a learnable skill, and can be mastered with some readily accessible strategies.
- Create an affirming space for students, both individually and collectively. Teacher empathy has been shown to be a key factor in student success, along with praise and clear acknowledgement of progress toward a goal.
- Provide peer role models. Peer support, placing students in pairs or small groups, helps students learn academic and advising routines. In the classroom, peers can assist with instruction, clarify directions and provide behavioral models as needed.
Creating an inclusive learning environment can start with simple changes. The goal is to translate what has been found to be successful into general approaches that are easy to embed in learning environments. If we incorporate these practices into our classroom environments, students will feel safe, have a greater sense of belonging, and will be open to participating and sharing perspectives.
Announcements
Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 is National Hispanic American Heritage Month, where we pay tribute to generations of Hispanic Americans who have enriched and influenced our society in positive ways. CMU Libraries is currently featuring a DEI Book Display for Hispanic Heritage Month.
Microsoft is offering a research lecture series on Race and Technology. Registration is free and all talks are accessible online.
Timnit Gebru will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration (Sept. 27-Oct. 1). The DEI office is pleased to be supporting 67 attendees from SCS as a Gold level sponsor. We will also be attending the career fair and seeking volunteers to hold open office hours during the fair. We will have more updates early next week.
Today wraps up our participation at the CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference held Sept. 14–17 this year. We want to thank the staff, faculty and students who contributed to our graduate recruitment efforts at the conference. SCS supported 19 students, six staff and one faculty member for this year’s event. Thanks to Jenn Landefeld for managing all of these efforts!
TechNights 2021 is planned for November. Thanks to all who volunteered to run a session, and to our planning team: Katherine Cordwell, Yutong Qiu, Elysia Saputra and Krista Dichiera.
SCS4All and Women@SCS meetings will be held on Mondays from 4:45 to 6:45 p.m. in 4405 Gates Hall. Reminders are sent by email the morning of the meeting.
Resources
The Eberly Center has resources for inclusive teaching.
Here are some links to strategies for building empathy:
- https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_habits_of_highly_empathic_people1
- https://ideas.ted.com/5-exercises-to-help-you-build-more-empathy/
- Brooks, C., Kizilcec, R. F., & Dowell, N. (2020, August). Designing inclusive learning environments. In Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (pp. 225-228).
- Fauville, Geraldine and Luo, Mufan and Queiroz, Anna C. M. and Bailenson, Jeremy N. and Hancock, Jeff, Nonverbal Mechanisms Predict Zoom Fatigue and Explain Why Women Experience Higher Levels than Men (April 5, 2021).
- Fuentes, M. A., Zelaya, D. G., & Madsen, J. W. (2021). Rethinking the course syllabus: Considerations for promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion. Teaching of Psychology, 48(1), 69-79.
- Ramsey, L. R., Betz, D. E., & Sekaquaptewa, D. (2013). The effects of an academic environment intervention on science identification among women in STEM. Social Psychology of Education, 16(3), 377-397.
- Xu, D., & Jaggars, S. S. (2014). Performance gaps between online and face-to-face courses: Differences across types of students and academic subject areas. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(5), 633-659.
Thank you,
The DEI Team
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/dei/
SCS-dei@cs.cmu.edu