Description:

Speaker: Dr. Diane Codding, Northwestern University
Title: Building Inclusive Graduate Programs - A Pilot in Physics

Equity in physics has been a persistent challenge. Many programs have actively pursued actions to improve both representation and retention in their local programs, making some progress, but change has been slow and is not yet reflected broadly across the physics community. Most prior research and models of change in equity have focused on enacting change through supporting physics students, especially those who have been historically marginalized. In this project, we take a systems approach by focusing on the physics program as a whole and studying how the program’s culture can enable student success. We tailor the support and resources to each of the 16 participating physics programs, including yours, to meet them where they are and support their own path forward. We utilize our team’s expertise in organizational change in, among others, designing a cohort of 16 participating physics programs and pursuing rigorous research to inform progress toward goals in a cyclical process of reflection and action. In this talk, we describe our project goals and discuss how CIERA can benefit from this work.