Author(s):
In higher education, scholars have examined how cross-departmental, cross-functional communities of practice (CoPs) focused on educational equity can affect organizational change and institutional transformation. Yet, few have examined how cross-departmental CoPs grounded in STEM disciplines advance institutional capacity-building for equity in student recruitment, retention, and completion. In this lightning talk, we present our STEM KickStarter 2.0 framework for building and sustaining a virtual community of practice (CoP) that leads to institutional transformation for improving STEM education for Latine students. The framework includes stages of onboarding, assessment, planning, implementation, and transformation over 18 months. Now in the second year of our IUSE grant, we have six CoP STEM Teams composed of faculty, staff/administrators, and students at six two-year Hispanic Serving Institutions working on projects to foster improvements in Latine student outcomes in STEM. Early findings from our research and evaluation of the program indicate STEM Team participants found the social and communal aspects of the CoP to be most impactful, such as working with colleagues on their projects, writing out goals and planning documents together as a team, and team projects. We conclude with implications for future practice and proposals that aim to use CoPs to advance institutional transformation.
Coauthors
Anna Tanguma-Gallegos; atanguma@asu.edu
