A BIG congrats to Katey Cooper, who just received ASU Faculty Women's Association Outstanding Faculty Mentor Early Career Award! She has been an integral part of RISE, and we are so appreciative of all of her hard work in the lab, in the classroom, and with her students!
Student identities matter in the classroom. But while much of the literature in this area focuses on overt student identities, namely race and gender, a new study focuses on what it calls concealable stigmatized identities, or “CSIs.” These include LGBTQIA+ status, being a first-generation college student, struggling academically during college, being a community college transfer student, growing up in a low-income household, and having anxiety, depression, addiction or a disability.
Every person has characteristics, beliefs, values and affiliations that they identify with. These identities can define and distinguish people from one another while also shaping communities and behaviors, and influencing how people interact with the world around them. There are some identities that people may be reluctant to share — called concealable stigmatized identities, or CSIs.
RISE Center PhD student Baylee Edwards just received the Teaching Excellence Award from the Graduate and Professional Student Association for her exceptional teaching contributions to ASU's Embryo Project. According to the GPSA "The Teaching Excellence Award (TEA) is a prestigious honor bestowed upon graduate and professional students who exemplify exceptional teaching prowess across all campuses of Arizona State University.
Busch, C. A., Bhanderi, P. B., Cooper, K. M., Brownell, S. E. (2024). Few LGBTQ+ Science and Engineering Instructors Come Out to Students, Despite Potential Benefits. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 23(2).
Busch, C. A., Araghi, T., He, J., Cooper, K. M., & Brownell, S. E. (2024). Beyond Gender and Race: The Representation of Concealable Identities Among College Science Instructors at Research Institutions. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 23(2), ar9.
Castle, S. D., Byrd, W. C., Koester, B. P., Pearson, M. I., Bonem, E., Caporale, N., ... & Matz, R. L. (2024). Systemic advantage has a meaningful relationship with grade outcomes in students’ early STEM courses at six research universities. International Journal of STEM Education, 11(1), 1-20.
In an event hosted by the RISE Center on Feb. 19 titled "Disability and Didactics: How we can advocate for students with disabilities in STEM," participants delved into strategies for enhancing support for students with disabilities in STEM fields. The session highlighted the need for updated perceptions and practices surrounding disability, accommodations and inclusion within educational frameworks and beyond. Vincent Truong, a junior studying biochemistry and psychology, was a main speaker at the event and began by defining impairment and disability.
RISE Center researchers and PhD students Jynx Pigart and Olivia Davis, along with a group of 15 Arizona State University students traveled to Denver, Colorado, last week for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general science conference in the world. The Center for Biology and Society and Barrett, The Honors College co-sponsor ASU students to travel to the AAAS conference each year and compete in the meeting’s poster competition.
This past fall, Nancy Gonzales, executive vice president and university provost, created a new honor, the Charter Professor, to specifically recognize exceptional ASU tenure-track and career-track faculty members engaged in projects that advance the values of the ASU Charter. The appointment comes with significant funding for Charter Professors’ projects over a period of three years. RISE Center director Sara Brownell was named Charter Professor this year for her research on inclusive excellence in undergraduate STEM education.