Virginia Tech has received a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop a Sloan Center for Systemic Change at the university, an initiative aimed at improving university systems and processes associated with graduate education to make them more equitable and inclusive across all programs and campuses.

Graduate School Dean Aimee Surprenant was named Principal Investigator (PI) for the project. The two-year pilot grant provides support to lay the groundwork for the center, focusing on the Colleges of Engineering and Science, with the Graduate School as lead and manager.

“It’s a planning grant, but the whole idea is to increase diversity, foster inclusion, and close equity gaps by looking at the policies and practices at the university,” Surprenant said.

Surprenant said Tracy Krauchun, director of foundation relations for Virginia Tech’s LINK: Center for Advancing Partnerships, learned of the grant opportunity and shared it with her.

“I thought the funding opportunity was a good fit for the Graduate School and the Colleges of Science and Engineering based on my knowledge of work being done to foster greater diversity among graduate students and the work that has been ongoing university-wide with respect to inclusion and diversity over the past several years,” Krauchun said.

Finding and eliminating barriers to student success

Suprenant said the Sloan Foundation has been awarding grants that develop centers for exemplary mentorship, but decided to look in an even more focused way at the systems, processes, and procedures across universities that create barriers that block certain students from certain backgrounds from being as successful as their peers. “It’s a much broader focus than just focusing on mentoring or other supports,” she said.

Tremayne Waller, director of graduate student programs for the College of Engineering and a co-PI on the project, said, “This endeavor will be a collaborative one, with the team's unwavering commitment aimed at significantly improving diversity, promoting inclusion, and bridging equity gaps.”

The Graduate School and the Colleges of Science and Engineering will focus on four key areas for improvement: expectations and accountability, access and resources, culture and skill development, and community and advocacy. Surprenant said the project team will spend the next two years developing the center, but some of the changes can be implemented during the planning efforts. The co-PIs for the College of Science are Trish Hammer, associate dean for faculty affairs, and Estrella Johnson, assistant dean for inclusion and diversity and associate professor of mathematics.

Making sure the systems work for everyone

Because the grant specifically calls for work with science, engineering, technology, and math (STEM) graduate students, involving the Colleges of Science and Engineering made sense. Additionally, faculty members in the College of Engineering already were working with Engineering Education Associate Professor Walter Lee on a National Science Foundation career grant he received that calls for many of the things the Sloan Foundation highlighted. “We really used Dr. Lee’s NSF proposal as a bedrock for this proposal,” Surprenant said.

Lee is a co-PI for the project. "I believe educational institutions have a responsibility to pay close attention to aspects of their environment that disadvantage some students and actively work to improve on a regular basis. Historically, this work has focused on supporting marginalized students’ success within the existing system,” Lee said. If we’re serious about promoting inclusion and equity, a similar effort must be made to make sure our graduate education policies, systems, and processes can be easier to navigate for everyone. Our approach to advancing equity should cover all sides."

Start with eight programs; aim university wide

Eight disciplines across the two colleges were selected for the development phase: chemistry, physics, and geosciences in the College of Science; and biomedical engineering, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering, and computer science in the College of Engineering.

Surprenant said the team chose programs that were already initiating efforts described in the grant’s goals, and some that were not doing much yet, but wanted to improve their recruitment and retention efforts, and support the success of students from a wide range of backgrounds.

“It's a mixed bag,” she said, “There are some that are ahead of others. It'll be interesting to see how we can use the best practices that are developed in one department to help others.” Waller said the grant will help support several projects dedicated to systemic change, such as Protégé and Dean’s Fellows.

“This presents a valuable opportunity for us to collaborate, collectively address significant challenges, and share best practices within our respective fields” Waller said. “The synergy between the overarching goals of the Sloan Center and the specific initiatives at the College of Engineering not only magnifies our impact, but also contributes to a broader, positive transformation.”

"Our team leading the Protégé Collective and in the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) has played an instrumental role in creating an inclusive environment for our students," said Julie Ross, the Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Dean of Engineering at Virginia Tech. This grant takes that mission to the next level by further addressing the systemic changes required to create a more equitable graduate environment."

What the project team will do for two years

The Virginia Tech project team will conduct the following activities and take advantage of resources the Sloan Foundation provides to meet the grant’s goals:

  • Conduct interviews and focus groups with students, faculty members, graduate coordinators, and leadership to better understand experiences and perceptions across departments.
  • Provide professional development for individuals responsible for implementing departmental policies, including a focus on how to better use data to inform policy and practice.
  • Adapt the Engineering Education program’s Graduate Student Success in Multicultural Environments course for the College of Science.
  • Scale up and formalize the faculty-facing Graduate Student Success in Multicultural Environments course.
  • Organize and host a seminar series to promote professional development for graduate students.
  • Offer specialized faculty training and other professional development opportunities that facilitate equity-minded and culturally-responsive teaching, mentoring, and advising practices.
  • Select a team of university representatives to participate in the University of Southern California’s Equity in Graduate Education Consortium.

Additional benefits and next steps

Surprenant said the opportunity to participate in the Equity in Graduate Education Resource Center’s consortium is an added benefit. “Their main goal is to help us with holistic admissions practices so that we’re able to look at the whole person when we're admitting them,” she said. “With the Supreme Court decision banning race-based admissions, we're really excited about having their help in developing more inclusive admissions processes at the graduate level that advance our aim to enroll students with diverse perspectives.”

She also noted that the next two years are only the beginning of this project. “This is phase one and phase two would be a potential Sloan implementation grant in 2025. That would ask us to create a permanent Center for Systemic Change at Virginia Tech,” Surprenant said.

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