Next week's Colloquium on Graduate Admissions, and related public workshop

Tue Nov 1 18:36:50 EDT 2016

Dear Physics community,

Prof. Julie Posselt (Dept. of Education, University of Southern California) will be giving the Physics Dept. Colloquium next Tuesday (Nov. 8)  -  "Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping"  - see abstract below.   Please reply to Crystal Moloney and me if you would like to meet with Prof. Posselt on Tuesday or come to dinner on Tuesday evening.
In addition, as part of a recently-funded NSF project, Prof. Posselt and Prof. Casey Miller (Rochester Institute of Technology) will hold a public workshop on Monday afternoon (Nov. 7) with research-based strategies for increasing diversity in STEM graduate education through modified admissions and retention practices (see workshop abstract after the Colloquium abstract).  As part of this NSF project, they will also hold a separate private workshop for the Physics Graduate Studies Committee on Tuesday before Prof. Posselt's colloquium.

Physics Depart Colloquium:  Nov. 8, 4pm - Smith Seminar Room - Prof. Julie Posselt  (University of Southern California) - "Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping"
How does graduate admissions work? Who does the system work for, and who falls through its cracks? Where does admissions reform fit into broader efforts to reduce inequalities in graduate education? In this talk, education professor Julie Posselt will pull back the curtain on admissions processes usually conducted in secret, and examine the limits and possibilities of rethinking admissions for increasing diversity in STEM. Drawing on more than five years of research that includes extensive observations of admission committees in action, Posselt will reveal how professors create and negotiate the meaning of merit as they evaluate applicants and work daily with their students. She will also show how departments that improve diversity through admissions and recruitment, but that lack strong mentoring relationships, may struggle to maintain gains serving underrepresented populations.

Public Workshop: "Enhancing Diversity in STEM Graduate Education through Admissions Practices" - Nov. 7, 3 to 5pm, Smith Seminar Room - Profs. Julie Posselt (USC) and Casey Miller (RIT).
Open to all - those involved with graduate admissions are particularly encouraged to attend.
This public workshop is being broadly advertised to the university community.  As space may be limited, we request that you RSVP (link below) if you plan to attend this workshop.
https://osu.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_ehrshqHyDT5WoMB
The National Academies have suggested that increasing diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math will be critical to the future competitiveness of the US in these areas [1], and the National Science Foundation (NSF) [2], the American Physical Society (APS), and many other organizations are taking this seriously.  This workshop is the result of a grant to APS through NSF's INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) initiative [3, 4], which aims to create a national network for access and inclusion in STEM graduate education.
In this workshop, two members of the PI team (Posselt and Miller) will discuss opportunities that may help increase the enrollment and retention of women and students of color.  It will focus, in particular, on current research related to enhancing diversity through graduate admissions policies and practices [5, 6, 7, 8], and employing key evidence-based features of successful Bridge Programs into graduate programs [9].  We will conclude by discussing non-cognitive competencies and their role in student selection processes [10].
References
[1]        National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, "Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads," The National Acadamies Press (2011); http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12984
[2]        Joan Ferrini-Mundy, "Driven by Diversity," Science 340, 278 (2013).
[3]        https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16048/nsf16048.jsp
[4]        https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1649297
[5]        Casey W. Miller, "Admissions Criteria and Diversity in Graduate School,"APS News, The Back Page, February 2013. http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201302/backpage.cfm
[6]        Casey W. Miller and K. G. Stassun, "A test that fails," Nature 510, 303-304 (11 June 2014) | doi:10.1038/nj7504-303a
[7]        Posselt, J. R. (2016). Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Harvard University Press.
[8]        Posselt, J. R., Reyes, K. A., Slay, K., Kamimura, A., & Porter, K. (in press). "Equity efforts as boundary work: How symbolic and social boundaries shape access and inclusion in graduate education." Teachers College Record.
[9]        Stassun, K.G., Sturm, S., Holley-Bockelmann, K., Burger, A., Ernst, D., & Webb, D., "The Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-to-PhD Bridge Program: Broadening Participation of Underrepresented Minorities in the Physical Sciences. Recognizing, enlisting, and cultivating 'unrealized or unrecognized potential' in students", American Journal of Physics 79, 374 (2011).
[10]      Casey W. Miller, "Using Non-Cognitive Assessments in Graduate Admissions to Select Better Students and Increase Diversity", STATUS, p1, January (2015) http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/Status2015_Jan_s.pdf

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