DLRC to host seminar on diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM classrooms

The Discovery Learning Research Center on Friday (Feb. 12) will host a seminar exploring the unique relevance of social group identities for faculty and students in the STEM classroom.

Alford A. Young Jr., the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan, will speak on "The Latent Challenges Concerning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the STEM Classroom: Revelations from a Faculty Study" at 11:30 a.m. in the Hall for Discovery and Learning Research, Room 143A/B. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

Young's talk will draw from a qualitative study of the teaching experiences and pedagogical commitments of faculty in a higher educational institution. It will consider how faculty members with different social group identities address some issues -- questions about their subject matter and questions about the authority of the faculty role -- as well as issues pertaining to how social identity composition of the classroom implicitly and explicitly shapes the learning experiences of different kinds of students.

Young holds a joint appointment in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and (by courtesy) in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Studies at University of Michigan. He received his master's degree and doctorate in sociology at the University of Chicago, and his bachelor's degree in sociology, psychology and African American studies from Wesleyan University.

Young has pursued research on low-income, urban African Americans, African American scholars and intellectuals, and the classroom experiences of faculty as they pertain to diversity and multiculturalism. He has published "The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances" (Princeton University Press 2004), co-authored "The Souls of W.E.B. Du Bois" (Paradigm Publishers, 2006), and co-edited "Faculty Social Identity and the Challenges of Diversity: Reflections on Teaching in Higher Education" (Paradigm Publishers, 2013). He also has published articles in Sociological Theory, the Annual Review of Sociology, Symbolic Interaction, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and other scholarly journals.

The event, which is open to the public, is sponsored by Discovery Learning Research Center; ADVANCE-Purdue and the Center for Faculty Success; Center for Trans-Institutional Capacity Building; and the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.

For more information, contact the DLRC at 765-494-4555 or learningcenter@purdue.edu.

Writer: Megan Huckaby, 765-496-1325, mhuckaby@purdue.edu