There is a disproportionate loss of minoritized undergraduate students from STEM majors (Haak et al., 2011; Hughes, 2018). Faculty change efforts to confront this diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) challenge, such as the adoption of evidenced-based instructional approaches, has been slow (Theobald et al., 2020). STEM departments are communities of practice where faculty perceptions about instruction and DEI can remain static; recent evidence suggest that it is critical to focus change efforts on the departmental-level rather than on individuals (Quardokus-Fisher and Henderson, 2018). There are two key traits to ensure that academic communities of practice evolve: Change efforts should be long-term while influencing the beliefs of the individuals of the community (Henderson et al., 2011/2012; Brownell and Tanner, 2012; Lund and Stains 2015). A potential change strategy to promote DEI-related evolution is to embed tenure-track education-focused faculty who specialize on instructional DEI initiatives within STEM departments (Andrews et al., 2016; Rawns and Fox, 2018). By consistently interacting with their colleagues, these specialist faculty have been demonstrated to pedagogically innovate within their department (Andrews et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2021). Therefore, we sought to assess whether tenure-track education-focused faculty can influence their colleagues on instructional topics, including those related to DEI. We surveyed five STEM departments at large research-intensive campuses. The surveys had faculty select colleagues who were influential upon various aspects of instruction, including methodology, course materials, and importantly on aspects of DEI. This enabled us to construct social networks of influence across multiple aspects of instruction and values of various departments. Our analyses reveal heterogeneity in terms of networks. Some, like the teaching strategies network, are highly connected and involve the majority of the department, while others, like the DEI influence network, comprise a significantly smaller population of faculty. Importantly, we find that tenure-track education-focused faculty faculty are influential across all aspects of instruction and are disproportionately so in the sparsely populated DEI influence networks. This suggests that embedding these specialist influential faculty within departments may lead to effective sustained change efforts in the DEI values held by STEM academic departments.

Academic influencers: Tenure-track education-focused faculty as potential departmental change agents for diversity, equity, and inclusion

ACS Spring 2022

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