Contributing to Diversity and Inclusion in STEM Graduate Education: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

Professional paper; Diversity; Inclusion; Interdiciplinary program; STEM graduate education Women and minority groups, Black or African American, Latinos, and American Indian and Alaska Native, are underrepresented in STEM graduate education and the workforce. in are participation Our Foundation Research Traineeship Program (NRT), the Rural Resource Resiliency, at K-State University attracts students from diverse backgrounds and cultivates a culture of inclusiveness. Our NRT is an interdisciplinary graduate traineeship that trains diverse STEM graduate students to solve the grand challenges of creating sustainable food, energy and water systems in rural communities in semi-arid regions. Incorporating interdisciplinary research, faculty mentoring, developing students’ career pathways, and periodic assessment and continued refinement of these three modalities, which has been designed as part of our NRT, may have a positive impact on diversity and inclusion and might be a model for other graduate STEM programs. To recruit students to the NRT with diverse backgrounds, we used multiple strategies. The most successful recruitment strategy has been connecting NRT faculty and trainees to prospective students. Program documents show that the NRT first and second cohorts comprised 50% women and 50% men. Our first NRT cohort comprised one URM students while our second cohort comprised half (50%) URM students, and the third cohort comprises of 53.84% URM students. The NRT composition of women and men with the national population, while the NRT composition URM and third cohorts