The Fight for STEM For All

Students walk past the Morse Hall Chemistry Building, Oct. 18. Issues of gender-based discrimination were raised at a department retreat earlier this year. Ella Banken//AS Review

Students are working to make Western’s College of Science and Engineering inclusive

By Hailey Murphy and Sydnee Smith

The College of Science and Engineering is taking action to improve equity and inclusion after a series of events sparked dialogue between students and administration on the college’s shortcomings.

Students in the college have expressed concerns about the lack of support and resources for underrepresented students, including an absence of diverse faculty, which is contributing to an unhealthy climate in the college.

Students met with the college’s dean, Brad Johnson, on Friday, Oct. 26, to discuss the college’s lack of minority professors after the news that G McGrew, a chemistry professor, would not be retained.

Johnson noted prior to the meeting that the college would keep McGrew on for the remainder of the year, but still students were upset about the lack of diverse professors and decided to go forward with the meeting.

Students said McGrew was a main professor of color in the college, and expressed their grievances with the college’s equity and inclusion efforts.

Club leaders from the college also sent a list of needs to Johnson during the week of Oct. 29.

Some of the needs included in the letter are student representation in faculty search committees, quarterly departmental meetings dedicated to inclusion and equity that include student voice and extra administration positions dedicated to inclusion and diversity.

After having the initial meeting with Johnson and attending a biology faculty meeting, Natasha Hessami, a biochemistry major, is mostly looking forward to the institutional and policy changes within the college of science and engineering. She believes the issues coming to the surface will extend to other colleges on campus and encourage Western to work on it’s equity.

“I do want folks to know things are going as well as they can be,” Hessami said.

Hessami said she struggles attending Western while being part of a marginalized group, as she said it isn’t known to be a safe space for minorities. She also mentioned the lack of effort to fix the problem with recruiting and retaining professors of marginalized groups.

“Despite a lot of asks and promises and statements…this is a pervasive problem in Western,” Hessami said at the meeting.

Hessami is also the Associated Students vice president for governmental affairs, but has been pursuing changes in the college as a student.

Kristopher Aguayo, a chemistry student, mentioned it isn’t responsible to admit students of color when they don’t have a network or the resources of staff who look like them.

Both Hessami and Lia Cook, co-presidents of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, spoke to how the lack of people of color in the college affects them.

“It’s so painful to be a marginalized student and having to create the conversation,” Cook said.

In the aftermath of the meeting, Johnson said his goal is to continue working with students to improve equity in the college.

“It was important for me to hear student experiences. It was important for me to hear what types of things the students think are important, as steps to help improve and support what they’re trying to get done,” Johnson said. “It was important to hear that they did not believe their experience at Western was a good one. I think that was heartbreaking for me, but important because I believe in this place.”

Issues of Race in CSE

Students also expressed to Johnson that the problem isn’t just the lack of professors from marginalized groups, but the entire culture of Western and the college. Students such as Hessami and Cook noted the lack of support they have, as the number of professors to turn to who look like them and can relate to their experiences is extremely limited.

Western partnered with UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) in 2017 to conduct a campus climate assessment across faculty, students and staff. It found that faculty of marginalized identities, particularly faculty of color, experience campus less equally than white, male, cisgender and heterosexual individuals.

The report states that 73.9 percent of professors of color experience stress due to “subtle” discrimination, versus 36.7 percent of white professors.

Additionally, more white professors than professors of color – 70.3 percent versus 66.6 percent – believe that Western’s hiring practices are increasing diversity, according to the report.

The report also states that 77 percent of faculty of color believe that faculty are unprepared to deal with diversity-related problems in their classrooms, compared to 61.6 percent of white professors.

Last spring, Yen conducted workshops on diversity and inclusion for her honors program senior project. The workshops sought to facilitate conversations about identity, privilege and discrimination in STEM while giving students more ways to enact change.

At these workshops, Yen asked students, all STEM majors, if they saw themselves in a science career. Of the attendees, 86 percent answered yes, but out of the same pool of students, 83 percent answered that they believed the science community isn’t inclusive.

“This is probably the clearest indication that the STEM community still has work to do,” Yen wrote in her report. “It is unfathomable to me that almost everyone who attended the workshops can imagine themselves in a career—in a community—where they do not feel supported.”

Another issue raised at the meeting is that anti-oppression work often falls on the shoulders of students of color, which is another burden on top of school and work.

“Yes, I could say, ‘I no longer want to be a part of this,’” Aguayo said. “But I can’t do that because I don’t necessarily have the privilege of saying ‘Today I’m not going to be a member of this identity.’ That’s something I don’t think many understand.”

In Yen’s report, she concluded that more conversations surrounding race and identity need to happen in science classrooms, in order to lessen the burden on students.

These conversations are often avoided because science is an objective subject, and oppression isn’t something that can be discussed with an objective viewpoint, Yen said.

Additionally, because of the competitive mindset in science, people don’t like to be told they’re wrong, which discourages the acknowledgement of problematic speech, Yen said.

“A lot of people’s first instinct when you say, ‘that’s racist,’ is to be like, that person is bad,” Yen said. “And this is part of what I was trying to do in my workshops, too, is to get away from seeing oppression as an issue of people, and shift it back to seeing oppression as a systemic issue.”

Without an equitable environment and without professors to approach, it’s difficult to learn, said Franchine Ninh, co-president of the Association of Women in Computing.

“As somebody of color, as a woman, I second guess myself all the time,” Ninh said. “So when there are things in my environment that are almost validating those negative feelings, those insecurities, its really really hard to fight that feeling out. My club, other people in this computer science department, have really helped me fight through that.”

Hessami said the biggest problem at Western is faculty and staff don’t know what to do, and instead of seeking guidance, they don’t do anything. Hessami thinks they’re finally forcing the conversation among faculty and staff though, and it’s being met with positive reactions.

“Unfortunately what needs to happen, to keep that change the same, is pressure from students.  And unfortunately, that pressure has to come from underrepresented students who carry the burden of a lot of other issues already,” Hessami said. “I think change will happen, but pressure needs to be held by those folks who are most affected.”

Issues of Gender Discrimination

The college has also been criticized for discriminating on the basis of gender.

Allegations came forward at a chemistry department retreat last September that former chair Mark Wicholas engaged in gender-based discrimination, which resulted in Johnson cancelling a symposium to celebrate his contribution to the college, said Spencer Anthony-Cahill, the current department chair.

These allegations were regarding promotion, salary and tenure of women in the chemistry department, Cahill said.

No report has been filed with the EOO, so no official investigation is being conducted, said Paul Cocke, director of communications and marketing.

It’s unclear exactly how Wicholas engaged in gender-based discrimination during the tenure promotion and evaluation processes, since its changed little over the years and involves more than just the departmental chair, Johnson said.

However, the HERI report found that 73.4 percent of women professors experience stress over the tenure and promotion process, while only 51.8 percent of men reported feeling that stress.

Additionally, 44.7 percent of women professors feel stress over their job security, versus only 29 percent of men, which is because men hold a disproportionate amount of tenure positions at Western, according to the report.

Women are also less happy with their pay, with 63.4 of men and only 48.8 percent of women reporting satisfaction with their compensation, according to the report.

Yen found that students and faculty at Western are much more comfortable addressing gender discrimination than racial discrimination.

“It’s hard to avoid interacting with [multiple] genders,” Yen said. “It’s much easier to avoid interacting with multiple races, and I think that’s a big thing. If you aren’t exposed to people of other races, it can be very uncomfortable to talk about what race means.”

What’s Being Done?

The college recently started conducting a climate assessment with the Equal Opportunity Office, involving both faculty and students, to address potential opportunity gaps, Johnson said.

The climate assessment will be an anonymous survey, and will compile data to identify trends, strengths and weaknesses. This will then be used to create a change model for the college, which targets specific needs for the environment.

“[We’ll] know, having the data, how to move forward on next steps,” Johnson said. “And so I see this as a stepping stone, as part of the process we’re working on in the college moving forward, to make sure this kind of thing stays in the distant past.”

Johnson said he believes the assessment will have a positive effect, but some elements will happen more rapidly than others. He also believes it will help broaden the notion of what quality education is.

After the meeting with students, Johnson sent an email to all chairs and directors of the college to inform them about the meeting and the upcoming climate assessment.

Hessami now believes Johnson is committed to achieving change in the college of science and engineering, and welcoming students’ feedback.

On Oct. 29, Johnson and Hessami attended the biology department’s faculty meeting. Johnson shared his intent to improve inclusivity, while Hessami spoke towards students needs and concerns.

Johnson said he has a common goal with the students, to have a safe environment that fosters opportunity and growth. He also mentioned the benefit of communication between faculty and students to work towards progress.

“‘Hallway conversations’ are the place where people feel probably like they can be more honest about something than they can’t in a group setting,” Johnson said. “I feel like those kinds of things are positive. It’s opening the dialogue. It’s creating those lines of communication that maybe weren’t there before, trying to make the subject matter approachable.”

Johnson would like to attend more faculty meetings across departments to discuss inclusivity further, he said. Although Johnson must get invited to the faculty meetings, he said he plans to always invite Hessami and anyone else she suggests.

Johnson has also been working with clubs, such as Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science and Chemistry Club, to discuss issues of equity and inclusion in STEM. He met with a group of the college’s club leaders on Nov. 5, he said.

Kelly Yokuda, a member of the chemistry club, said club leaders want to ensure their voices aren’t lost in future decisions, and they appreciate Johnson working with them to improve these issues.

Johnson said meeting with students is also beneficial for him to open up dialogues, and he would like to continue them on a regular basis. He would also like to continue student-driven meetings where everyone is welcome, like the initial meeting.

The college personnel committee is also working to ensure that their tenure and promotion processes are fair and equitable, in light of the allegations brought against Wicholas, Johnson said.

Evaluation of a tenure candidate goes through the department’s tenured faculty, the department chair, the college dean, the Provost, the President and the Board of Trustees, as outlined in the faculty union’s collective bargaining agreement with Western. These evaluations include the candidate’s work performance in the years leading up to tenure candidacy.

The college monitors this process every year, Johnson said, with their personnel committee and their faculty governance committee meeting to discuss and refine their evaluations. These decisions are also informed by the college’s Equity, Inclusion and Diversity committee.

However, the evaluation process wasn’t outlined as clearly when Wicholas was chair, Johnson said. He retired in 2007, prior to the formation of the faculty union, when the promotion process was codified in the collective bargaining agreement.

Western is also more conscious to include equity and inclusion into every stage of the evaluation process to ensure that faculty are promoting these ideals in their classrooms, Cahill said.

Students proposed changes to the general hiring process during their meeting with Johnson. Johnson mentioned the college system works slowly, but they are trying to make faster changes for the juniors and seniors that are anxious to see change before they graduate.

“There was a great discussion amongst [the chairs of each department] about sharing the information, about who does what with their searches, and when do students get involved and how do students get involved so that we can regularize that,” Johnson said.

The chair members want to have search committees meet with students early in the hiring process so students can give feedback on the goals for the position and can hear what faculty want for that position. Students also would be able to meet with candidates and ask them questions and bring those interactions back to the hiring committee.

Cahill said in the past students have been informally integrated into the hiring process. A group of five to six students have taken candidates and attended a seminar presented by the candidate. The search committee would then take the students feedback about the candidate into consideration

The change to the hiring process would be that a 45-minute meeting with each candidate will happen with a group of four to five students who have expressed their desire to be a more formal part of the hiring process. After students meet with the candidates, they will provide written feedback to the department chairs.

In fall 2017, Provost Brent Carbajal launched the Provost Diversity & Inclusion Hiring Initiative to ensure that new tenured faculty are committed to diversity and inclusion, but also that Western is hiring and retaining diverse faculty members.

This initiative includes evaluating equity and inclusion competency at every stage of the hiring process; training search committees and department chairs about unconscious bias; ensuring that job descriptions use language inclusive to all groups; and including a commitment to equity and inclusion as part of the required qualifications, according to the Provost’s winter 2018 newsletter.

Cahill said the college has also been working with organizations of historically-underrepresented groups, such as SACNAS, to ensure job postings reach a more diverse hiring pool.

The EOO approves the diversity of both the initial candidate pool and the finalist pool, but the search committee has no demographic information until the finalists visit campus, Cahill said.

With the Provost’s hiring initiative, the EOO recorded more diverse hiring pools for almost every departmental hiring last year, Johnson said.

The college has a few other projects in place to help improve equity and inclusion.

The Change at the Core program, or C-Core, is a project funded by the National Science Foundation that seeks to shift STEM classrooms from teacher-centered to student-centered learning environments, according to the college’s website.

“We have to change the way the curriculum is delivered so that it’s delivered in a more equitable and inclusive fashion than it has been in the past,” Cahill said.

The Chemistry department reworked their chemistry curriculum a year and a half ago around the principles of C-Core, Cahill said. These changes involve having students do more group work, as opposed to just lecturing at the front of the room, to acknowledge different learning styles.

This same idea was brought up at Yen’s workshops when students brainstormed ways to improve inclusivity in science, according to the report. In a lecture-based course, student success is measured off just one type of learning, which may be a hindrance to students who struggle with that mode of engagement.  

Another project is the Advancing Excellence and Equity in Science program, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence Grant, which seeks to bring more marginalized students to the science programs at Western, according to the college website.

Students coming to Western through the HHMI program move through their degrees as a cohort, receiving faculty and peer mentoring along the way to help foster an inclusive environment, Cahill said. The HHMI grant also funds inclusivity training for faculty and staff.

However, there is evidence there is a still a ways to go. After Yen put up posters with sticky notes to spur discussion about making STEM more inclusive, they received some dismissive comments, including one written directly on the poster in the physics department that read “Remove grievance seeking shit like this.”

Yen responded by putting up another poster.

Article updated from print to reflect that Hessami is pursuing change in the College of Science and Engineering as a student, not as a member of the AS board.