Abstract
This section will focus on the economic factors that go into integrating an anti-racist pedagogy into STEM education at a liberal arts college. This section will highlight many aspects of the resources already available to professors at Lafayette college while suggesting additional programs. This project’s economic scope spans from student and professor retention to investing in a greater tomorrow. Lafayette College will pay for the facility to attend off-site training programs that will further enrich their professional career. Professors like Jenn Rossmann have used this opportunity to participate in a class entitled Race and Technology at New York University (Rossmann, 2022). Furthermore, the Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at Lafayette is an excellent resource for faculty and teachers to discover research programs, faculty services, and training. As previously mentioned, we implore the CITLS to implement a syllabus review program to help professors incorporate an anti-racist pedagogy in their pre-existing curriculum. By incorporating this way of teaching into Lafayette’s engineering curriculum, the school is increasing the value of its students, professors, and overall programs.
Investing in Lafayette Students and Professors
Professors
Many of the expenses spent on training professors might be considered a sunk cost by any Introduction to Economics student; however, this is different because the overall value of the professor will have increased. Anti-racist trainings and seminars provide the individual professor with more dynamic teaching skills and techniques. The college is also increasing its prestige by enhancing the professor’s career. To have well-rounded STEM professors means the overall value of the engineering programs is increased. This will attract more students and professors to the college and, in turn, increase the college’s revenue.
In order to reduce the cost of professor training, the college needs to look at hiring faculty with diverse skills and interests. By this, we are encouraging the College to focus their new hire search on candidates who have previous training in DEI and can offer suggestions on how to implement diverse curricula into the engineering curricula further. The college will increase its overall status by hiring cutting-edge thinkers and encouraging students from all over to learn at our DEI-focused, liberal arts-based engineering college. Drawing positive attention to Lafayette’s engineering program will encourage students and faculty alike to study in the foreground of a new STEM pedagogy. A diverse way of teaching includes encouraging students to use active thinking skills, form perspective, and enhance racial understanding (Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, Gurin, 2002). By hiring professors with predisposed knowledge and practice with an anti-racist pedagogy, the college saves money and will be more attractive to potential students. While the college trains all new hires and includes seminars on anti-racism, the more practice one has with this pedagogy, the better. This will also foster more robust inter-departmental dialogue regarding strengths and weaknesses found while adopting an anti-racist way of teaching. Many disciplines at the college already practice an anti-racist pedagogy, so including it in the STEM curriculum will further harness the Lafayette sense of community. As students at a liberal arts college such as Lafayette, we have noticed that much of the curriculum across departments is connected to diversity and inclusion; however, there is an apparent lack of DEI discussions in the engineering curriculum. It is virtual to the survival of Lafayette College that all departments start implementing a DEI curriculum to ensure students and faculty feel safe, heard, and welcomed all across campus. There is an evident inequality in engineering education verse humanities-based courses in that engineering students are deprived of the opportunity to deepen their connection to their peers, themselves, and their studies.
Students
Lafayette College professors are shaping tomorrow’s minds, and it is essential to provide students with all the tools possible to help society. Investing in the student’s future will turn around to financially benefit Lafayette through alum donations and increased word of mouth. The more successful a student is after college, paired with their college experience, directly impacts their donations to the school (Lafayette College 2021). Lafayette is investing in its future by investing in the student’s education and well-being.
One of President Hurd’s goals when arriving at Lafayette college was to enhance the student’s sense of belonging, strengthen our sense of community, and prepare students to be the leaders of tomorrow (Get to Know Nicole Hurd, 2021). One way to do this is to create a more accepting campus environment. For it to be expected that all students can think dynamically and emotionally intelligently, professors must take the first step and enforce these learning standards in the classroom. Lafayette hopes to produce the student that will shape a better tomorrow, but this is an impossible task without first teaching them about the hardships and misconducts of yesterday. Students take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to real life. Lafayette Students are fortunate enough to have a safe and nurturing environment to explore their personality and who they want to become. To grow and learn as an individual, you must apply empathy and intentional decision-making inside and outside the classroom. To help the students transform their community, they look to their professors for examples. It is up to the professors to teach their students to accept and have empathy for all. By providing students with a happy and well-rounded college experience, Lafayette is increasing the value of one of its post-graduates.
After dissecting alum donation trends, we have discovered that alums further from the time of graduation and with family members attending the college after they increase their chances of donating (Lafayette Gift Performance 2020-2021). Many of Lafayette’s alum donations come from students and athletes who feel they were seen, heard, and listened to while attending Lafayette College (Summary of Giving 2020-2021). With so many donations from our alums, the heightened importance of cultivating an accepting community is glaring. Suppose Lafayette College wants to continue receiving donations from alumni who felt accepted and welcomed inside and outside the classroom. In that case, the STEM pedagogy must change to one that is much more robust, diverse, and inclusive. According to Lafayette College’s Common Data Set for the 2022-2023 school year, the graduating class of 2022 consisted of 19.74% engineers, and the diverse makeup of the College was 22% non-white (Common Data Set 2022). While not every student was accounted for in the data set, about 28 non-white students graduated from Lafayette College with some engineering degree in May of 2022. Twenty-eight more students were sent into the workforce without the proper DEI background and training to solve contemporary and pressing world issues. Lafayette College does right by its students in many facets, but neglecting the engineering student’s right and responsibility to learn, dissect, and problem-solve from a diverse and inclusive perspective grossly misrepresents what it means to create a better tomorrow.
Training
While Lafayette offers several programs and trainings for both new and existing faculty, there is always more than could be done. Heather Bambam, the Curriculum Director at the Great Lakes Science Center, shares some initiatives that have helped her and her team focus on diversity and inclusion in STEM education. Bambam discusses the 1968 Brown Eye/Blue Eye experiment (Smithsonian, 2005). Before suggesting ways we could adapt this experiment into faculty training, she notes that many of the ethical questions of the experiment regarding the participants’ age would not be an issue in this case as all participants would be consenting, informed adults. She suggests that seminar leaders divide the participating group into categories based on arbitrary attributes such as hair color, and then randomly decide which group is “better.” Like in the case of the children, it will become abundantly apparent that the “dominant” group takes on attributes consistent with those that align with a racist pedagogy. This small experiment will illustrate firsthand to professors just how important this way of teaching is and how personally impactful marginalizing language and practices can be to minority groups. This experiment is just one of many examples of free training that Lafayette could adopt.
The Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at Lafayette College aims to “further the institutional mission of Lafayette College by providing research-based programming, services, and other resources to support faculty as teacher-scholars. Working in partnership with faculty, administration, staff, and students are integral to our success” (CITLS). This center aims to help professors create and foster a diverse and holistic learning experience for students. The CITLS often pairs with the College’s Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM Education to create programs and lessons encouraging professors to include DEI in their curriculum. The Center currently has a board-approved monetary budget for professor trainings and seminars, but time and resources also play a factor when budgeting (CITLS). Asking professors and faculty to set aside extra time to participate in DEI training may be time intensive at first; however, in the long run, these trainings will add a non-quantifiable amount of value to Lafayette as a business and Lafayette as a community.
To read the conclusion of this project please click here.