Soaring Into STEM

Soaring Into STEM

AN HBCU PERSPECTIVE ON AFFECTING CHANGE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

By Maya Hamer, Christopher Lawson and Dr. Siobahn Day Grady University Innovation Fellows and Faculty Champion North Carolina Central University

North Carolina Central University (NCCU), home of the Eagles, was founded by James E. Shephard in 1910, is located in the heart of (downtown) Durham, North Carolina. Soaring Into STEM was an idea created by students that saw a need to affect change on campus, invoked by the opportunity to become change agents in higher education and to embody our beliefs in, “Truth and Service.” After canvassing our campus, we saw that there was a disconnect between staff, students, and the surrounding community. Through the University Innovation Fellowship sponsored by the Hasso Plattner School of Design (d.school) at Stanford University, we sought to impact the areas of creativity, innovation, and design-centered thinking at NCCU.

Seeing the lack of enthusiasm in students, poor engagement between students and faculty, and not seeing the engagement with the community was eye-opening. Soaring Into STEM is an event that will strengthen collaboration and build cohesion across university colleges, faculty, and students while enhancing the relationship between NCCU and the surrounding communities. We will accomplish these efforts by hosting a three-day event where we will expose our students to a research symposium, career fair, and food drive tailored to Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). Our event is important because it promotes innovation and has a design-centered focus to affect change. We will increase camaraderie among current students and staff while creating a blueprint for other HBCUs and MSIs to mimic. Providing the students a platform to express their individual thoughts in a formal setting provides exposure to research and fosters future researchers. The food drive welcomes the community as a partner instead of an outreach as it will be an exchange of resources and an opportunity to grow together. The food drive will also provide us the opportunity to partner with the NCCU Campus Pantry. We not only have the ability to use an already created resource, but we can enhance experiences and shed light on areas of opportunity to overcome challenges and bridge gaps of underused resources. The career fair would be the cherry on top as we provide career experiences that revolve around our students and companies aligned with Diversity Equity and Inclusion. The stakeholders involved include students, faculty and staff, school administration, and executives. UIF taught us that there will always be ways to overcome challenges through incorporating design-centered thinking and providing us transferable skills that last beyond academia. We were afforded online training, weekly virtual meetups, and mentor support that was tailored to our individual challenges and areas of opportunity at NCCU. With design-centered thinking, we had to reshape and pivot our ideas on how we could make Soaring Into STEM possible. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were limited on making a physical impact; however, utilizing virtual spaces would be ideal. We had to be empathetic to the overwhelming pandemic, and be clear and concise with the experiences we wanted to show our staff and students.

By ideating and having stakeholder involvement we were able to compose an event that could be life-changing and have a great user experience. With the help of our Faculty Champion Dr. Siobahn Day Grady, we were able to start an international organization called the Association for Computing and Machinery (ACM) Student Chapter at NCCU, linking computing professionals from all over the world. Through ACM, we have the opportunity to raise funds, get connected with speakers and leaders in the computing field, and be an added resource to the students at NCCU for opportunities and networking. We hope to engage both undergraduate and graduate students during orientations and other campus events that bring exposure to ACM and the School of Library and Information Science.

The methodologies that we take from UIF will aid in implementing Soaring into STEM by collaborating with our faculty, deans, trustees, and institutional leadership. As university change agents we now have a platform to discuss ways that enhance our educational experiences by engaging with students in a hands-on approach and capitalizing on self-guided learning experiences. We can advocate and lead partnerships that are cross-departmental at NCCU and cross-institutional that include other HBCUs and MSIs. Having a space to be an incubator that incorporates creativity, innovation, design thinking, and entrepreneurship will bolster our traditional coursework. With the tools and resources provided, Soaring Into STEM will make broader impacts as we can speak about the UIF partnership and our project at national conferences. We are now collaborating with other Fellows that are not within our region or discipline. Our advocacy for policy change and the support of Soaring Into STEM using passion as a catalyst to solving societal problems using the necessary attitudes, skills, and abilities to affect change locally, globally, and nationally.

Soaring Into STEM will be an ongoing venture; however, one of our challenges will be whether to hold the conference in person or have it virtually. COVID-19 is still a threat to all and we face ongoing restrictions if we choose to hold this conference in person. Some restrictions would be COVID-19 consists of testing sites on campus, mask-mandate requirements for attendees, vaccination record submissions, as well as numerous other requirements we may need to enforce. Holding the conference in person may require a larger quantity of personnel and staff that we may not have the budget for. Another challenge we will face is incentives.

Though we have a few companies interested in investing, we still would like to provide travel stipends for selected students from HBCUs; specifically, those who have been selected to be presenters. Lastly, a challenge we may face is our current student conference on campus, the Graduate and Undergraduate Research Symposium (GURS). GURS is a one-day event where undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to present their research to a panel of judges as well as participate in a poster presentation. While we are not trying to reinvent the wheel, we do want to do a similar symposium that allows students the chance to speak about their research or project they are passionate about. We want to expand the range of who will see them present. By inviting other HBCU undergraduates and graduates we begin to create a network and space solely for them.

Next steps will be meeting with our Chancellor Dr. Johnson O. Akinleye, Ph.D., and facilitating another stakeholder meeting where all parties involved can attend. This is where we can provide concrete ideas and express the partnerships that we’ve gained in addition to showcasing the need and broader impacts that this event will have. We can also elaborate on our experiences in San Francisco and at Stanford University. We have created a community amongst HBCUs that attended the UIF and will be reaching out to them in order to collaborate on this project. It cannot be stated enough, how much support we garnered in such a short amount of time from NCCU and UIF. Being the inaugural cohort of NCCU, the exposure to an opportunity such as the UIF through Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner School of Design (d.school) and their HBCU Initiative was monumental and deserves recognition.