Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEMS (TIDES) Institute

Overview

The changing demographic landscape of higher education indicates that still more students of color will enroll in college in the next decades. Recent data show that, increasingly, they are indicating a desire to pursue undergraduate degrees in the STEM disciplines. Their success is not only tied to our nation’s capacity to remain globally competitive; it is also dependent upon our capacity to change how we think about ourselves as scholars, how and where we place value on and find value in diverse students, and how we choose to show up in our daily interactions with students and colleagues. Grounded in this reality, the TIDES Institute aims to guide STEM faculty in pursuing the kind of deep reflection and introspection of self, department, and institution that is required for designing, implementing, and evaluating culturally responsive pedagogical strategies in undergraduate STEM disciplines.

About the Institute Curriculum

The AAC&U TIDES Institute, derived from our evidence-based professional development model, offers a unique opportunity for STEM faculty to build capacity and self-efficacy in understanding the root causes of minority group underrepresentation in STEM and their unique role in addressing them. Through uniquely designed presentations and experiential activities, as well as expert-guided discussions with institution transformation coaches, this Institute overcomes the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach to STEM faculty professional development for improved undergraduate STEM teaching. It promotes both accountability to self and others as a unifying theme and connects participants to a national networked improvement community for culturally responsive teaching in STEM that can be leveraged for widespread change.

During the four days of the AAC&U TIDES Institute, participants can expect

• an expert-guided, intensive review of the literature that interrogates the culture of STEM and the assumptions that are held about who belongs in STEM;
• deep immersion into self-reflection on and introspection of the ways in which we, as STEM faculty of all backgrounds and social identities, have been complicit in dominant STEM cultures that often exclude diverse STEM talent; and
• preparation in the application of mindfulness as a unifying reference point and practice for implementing meaningful, culturally responsive pedagogical strategies.

Who Should Attend

The AAC&U TIDES Institute is designed for STEM faculty and administrators who have reached, or are nearing, a tipping point in building their capacity for integrating cultural responsiveness into their teaching strategies. The state of readiness to take on this work is critical to maximizing the Institute experience and contributing to addressing the underrepresentation of minoritized groups in STEM. Participants should come prepared to do the deep, internal work that has been repeatedly shown to be essential to achieving cultural responsiveness. Past participants who have indicated the AAC&U TIDES Institute was “transformative” for them include

• faculty from all STEM and non-STEM disciplines;
• senior and mid-level administrators who have either mandated or been charged with implementing diversity initiatives;
• funded Principal Investigators leading campus- or department-wide projects;
• prior AAC&U and PKAL Institute participants looking to deepen and expand their professional skill sets and make greater contributions to undergraduate STEM reform.

Please send questions to pkal@aacu.org.