Import Test : Diversity in the Classroom

E-Mentoring Network for Diversity in Engineering and Science

Matt Scales — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:06:00 GMT

The following announcement recently appeared in the Teaching Professor mail list edited by Rick Reis of Stanford University. It details a unique faculty mentoring program that focuses on supporting women and underrepresented minorities preparing for academic positions in science and engineering.

MentorNet: E-Mentoring Future Faculty in Science and Engineering
- Just 1 -2 emails per month!

MentorNet (www.MentorNet.net), the E-Mentoring Network for Diversity in Engineering and Science, seeks female and male tenured faculty as mentors in its Academic Career E-Mentoring Program. In this addition to MentorNet's award-winning E-Mentoring Programs, women and underrepresented minorities* pursuing faculty careers are matched with female and male tenured faculty members for 8-month mentoring relationships conducted via email. Proteges may be graduate students, postdocs, or untenured tenure-track faculty members.

We currently have over 80 proteges from diverse fields seeking matches in the program, particularly in:
- Biological sciences
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Computer sciences and many other fields

Benefits of E-Mentoring with MentorNet:
- Convenience - Do it at times that suit your schedule. Only about 20 minutes/week.
- Support - Access to MentorNet's online mentoring materials to guide your experience. - -Outreach - Opportunities to connect with students, post-docs, and early career faculty outside of your university.
- Satisfaction - Know that you have helped someone else by sharing your experiences, advice and support on issues such as work/life balance, research, tenure, and university life. Furthermore, mentoring has been demonstrated to help mentors gain perspective and clarity about their own career paths.

Please consider volunteering as a mentor and publicizing the program to your colleagues by passing on this message. Even if you choose not to be a mentor, spreading the word about MentorNet to other faculty members can help us to provide mentors for those protégés waiting to be matched!

For more information, visit www.MentorNet.net/documents/about/programs/academic.aspx or contact Jennifer Chou-Green at jennifercg@mentornet.net.

To sign up, visit http://www.mentornet.net/

*While MentorNet's focus is on women and minorities in engineering and science, all students are welcome to participate.

"Beyond Tolerance" - NEFDC Fall Diversity Conference

Matt Scales — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:11:30 GMT

The NEFDC (New England Faculty Development Consortium) fall conference will take place November 4, 2005 at the Westford Regency Conference Center, Westford, Massachusetts. The conference is entitled “Beyond Tolerance: Diversity and the Challenge of Pedagogy in American Higher Education”. The keynote speaker will be Gail Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College. Details are available at www.nefdc.org (click on upcoming events or the fall conference information link)

Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Today’s Diverse Classroom

Matt Scales — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 15:29:03 GMT

Thanks to Donna Duffy of MCC for forwarding the following summary of the MCC Summer Institute session Session 3-D: Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Today’s Diverse Classroom.

Presenters: Kristen A. Peterson, Assistant Professor of History and Women’s Studies Coordinator; Joy N. Miller, Assistant Professor of Psychology. Both are at Pine Manor College.

The presenters began by asking us to acknowledge our own identities and to recognize what we bring to our classrooms. Through the use of a student comment, they emphasized the importance of context. The student noted that: “When I am in the US I am Black and then a woman. When I go to Haiti, I am a woman first.” Kristen and Joy suggested that we need to identify how our own identities and the identities of students may be shaped by the environment of the classroom. They discussed the need to create active dialogue and to provide opportunities for self reflection on classroom discourse. An effective approach they use in their interdisciplinary course on the psychology of race, class, and gender involves role play situations with debriefing discussions. What are the explicit and implicit behaviors observed? How do we interpret body language in classroom settings? Kristen and Joy showed a video from their course in which students role played different reactions to a question about international adoptions and then discussed their reactions to the activity as a class. The video demonstrated that students had developed a language for discussing difficult identity issues and had altered many of their more rigid attitudes. The role plan/debrief activity is a powerful approach for confronting issues but can generate high levels of emotion and discomfort in everyone involved. Kristen and Joy suggest the importance of faculty knowing their own social identities and developing the flexibility to help students find their own voice and identity in the context of the classroom.

DIVERSITY: National Coalition Building Institute

Matt Scales — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:13:31 GMT

The following post from Judith Kamber, NECC was copied from our Open Forum comments section. It seemed to merit a blog entry of its own so it has been posted below:

A year ago NECC became an affiliate of NCBI. NCBI is an International Organization that promotes tolerance and diversity and provides training in the NCBI model. We were assisted in this effort by NSCC(North Shore Community College). They have successfully used the model for years. We have a team of faculty and staff who have bee trained in NCBI and since September we have been busy providing workshops for staff and students. What I particularly like about this model is that it is ongoing, can be provided in hours or days if available. It has also been an amazing community building experience for the NCBI team. For more information you can visit www.ncbi.org We also have our own NCBI site on our web site. I'd be happy to discuss this in greater detail for those who are interested.

Diversity: Underrepresented Students

Matt Scales — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 10:00:00 GMT

Jack Mino of Holyoke Community College poses a problem and raises several questions related to the COPPER cluster domain (theme) of "diversity" in the following post: Underrepresented Student Success Access to post-secondary education is fundamental to the goal of achieving equal educational opportunities for all students. Community college students seeking the baccalaureate must transfer. For them, transfer is neither an option nor a convenience. It is a requirement built into the structure of the higher education system. As a result of their geographic accessibility, open-door admissions policies, and reduced costs, community colleges are especially likely to serve a diverse student body. And because most under-represented students--first-generation, low-income, and older students, as well as students of color—begin their post-secondary studies at community colleges, their access to the baccalaureate depends (to a large degree) on a successful transfer experience (London, 1992; Rendon, 1995; Richardson & Skinner, 1992; Willett, 1989). Here’s the problem: many don’t transfer. This is especially true for students of color, particularly Latino and African-American male students. Do you know the course completion, persistence, graduation, and transfer rates of under-represented students at your institution? Which populations are most at-risk, and why? Is your institution responding to this problem, and if so, how? How are you responding to the needs of under-represented students in your classroom? To what extent have you been successful? Jack Mino, Professor of Psychology Holyoke Community College