American Chemical Society Meeting Session Features CIRTL’s Diversity Projects
Katherine Friedrich

Chemistry faculty from Howard University and the University of Wisconsin promoted CIRTL’s diversity resources and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Scholars Program on March 25th at an American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago.

“We’re trying to get the word out… in the disciplinary communities,” said co-presenter Judith Burstyn, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Burstyn led the creation of the diversity resources, and has since presented them to a variety of academic audiences.

The presentation, “Preparing Future Faculty to Effectively Teach Diverse Student Audiences at the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning,” described CIRTL’s diversity outreach, including an interactive workshop at the yearly STEM Education Scholars Program.

The 2006 STEM Education Scholars Program was hosted by Howard University. Co-presenter Folahan Ayorinde, a professor at Howard, said the program “opened the horizon” for the new and future faculty who attended. “Many of [the participants] are more knowledgeable about diversity – not just in the sense of racial diversity, but also in the sense of academic diversity, institutional diversity and cultural diversity,” he said.

Susan Hixson, CIRTL’s program officer at the National Science Foundation, organized the session, which was titled “NSF-Catalyzed Innovations in the Undergraduate Curriculum.” The second half of the session focused on diversity-related projects, while the first half focused on curricular changes.   
Both Burstyn and her second co-presenter, Professor Nilhan Gunasekera from the University of Wisconsin-Rock County, remarked that many attendees stayed after the presentation to ask questions – even though the talk took place at the end of an afternoon session. “Some of the big names in chemical education were there,” Gunasekera said. 

“There was someone talking to every single one of us for a while after the meeting,” Burstyn said. “There [is] a group of people who are very interested in these issues. It’s important to get this out in the disciplinary community.”

May 10, 2007

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