THE WORKSHOP
With a growing recognition of the value racial, ethnic and gender equity in the STEM workforce as a tool for accelerating innovation, the nation’s Hispanic-Serving Institutions have an important role to play as culturally relevant institutions of higher education serving a growing US demographic.
A number of powerful but small organizations and institutions — such as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Excelencia in Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities — have been working to elevate evidenced-based policies and strategies to increase the enrollment, retention, and success of Latinx students in STEM fields.
With the recent publication of the NAS report – Minority Serving Institutions: America’s Underutilized Resource for Strengthening the STEM Workforce – the timing is advantageous to consider approaches that allow new contributions to national approaches that recognize the role Latinx students have to make to U.S. leadership in innovation and technology.
ACCESS 2020 will convene a diverse collaboration of practitioners from offices of research at HSIs in an innovative and novel contribution to the national conversation around HSI climate and culture.
By being led by the offices of research, this convening will be a novel and concrete demonstration of campus intentionality around culture change and explicitly recognize the contributions that the research enterprise can make in supporting an campus HSI identity.
Too often, as noted in the NASEM MSI report, HSIs are framed in deficient ways in partnerships that do not value HSIs’ research capacity and assets. For example HSIs are often seen as “suppliers” of graduate students to Predominantly White Institutions- but HSIs may not be seen as having a graduate or research enterprise in and of themselves. This convening will expand perceptions of HSIs as creators of research, with excellence in knowledge creation capacity and technical expertise, not “just” teaching institutions that will supply their students to Predominantly White Institutions.
The goal of the convening will be to form an Action Collaborative that reflects the critical goals associated with leveraging HSI research enterprises in developing a diverse STEM workforce at HSIs:
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Raise awareness about the value of diverse technical teams that function equitably, the opportunities, and approaches for enhancing the contributions of HSIs and their students.
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Share and elevate evidence-based policies and strategies for increasing the participation of HSI students in STEM disciplines.
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Contribute to setting a research agenda, and gather and apply research results across institutions.
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Support existing standards for measuring progress toward improving outcomes for Latinx students in STEM.
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Seed a community of practice through co-commitment and mutual accountability to change.
SDSU TODAY
San Diego State University continues to gain recognition as a leader in higher education. It ranks No. 68 among public universities, and No. 147 in the 2020 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities by U.S. News and World Report.
RESEARCH
San Diego State University faculty continue to win significant research funding. In fiscal 2018-19, they secured $148.5 million in public and private funding—a total of 786 awards to 312 principal investigators. SDSU is the flagship research institution of the 23-campus California State University system, offering 23 doctoral programs.
SDSU students and faculty are scholars, educators, humanitarians and researchers. San Diego has long been a hub of innovation on many levels: biomedical sciences, military defense, public health, engineering, water science, climate change, social policy and more. Our researchers work alongside one another, with students and in partnership with industry and faculty from neighboring universities to help the region and the world tackle some of the biggest issues of our day.
Researchers in 2018-19 discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 Circumbinary System, studied a compound that reduces cardiac damage after a heart attack, identified a catalyst that may lower the cost of prescriptions and made strides in understanding the biology of autism. They built a molecular model of spider silk, developed a new way to study aggressive forms of cancer, leveraged bacteriophages in personalized medicine and investigated how an essential nutrient could mitigate developmental damage from prenatal exposure to alcohol.
SDSU investigators created tools to promote equity in the classroom, used silicone wristbands to measure nicotine exposure in children and developed assessments to detect language problems in children earlier. They are combating drug resistance, helping create a digitized plant collection to understand the impact of climate change on California, shedding light on gay and transgender identity, and establishing a better understanding of the role of women in Hollywood.
DIVERSITY
SDSU aims to foster an affirming campus culture based on the core values of excellence, equity, diversity, belonging and inclusion.
SDSU's Division of Diversity and Innovation advances diversity and inclusion as the drivers of innovation and excellence on campus, fostering a community where students, faculty, staff, and alumni of all backgrounds and identities can succeed and feel at home. The division works proactively to address systemic inequities through professional learning, community building, advocacy, policy recommendations and organizational structures, while facilitating an integrated vision and shared responsibility for prioritizing and advancing institutional goals.
SDSU elevates and celebrates inclusive excellence through equity-driven innovations that build and sustain structures, practices and cultures that advance the welfare of all peoples while honoring the institution’s identity as a HSI and residence on Kumeyaay land.