The Role of Faculty in Cultivating Thriving Campus STEM Ecosystems.

College and university campuses are complex ecosystems, and accounting for this complexity is crucial to understanding how to create conditions of equity and inclusion. Our academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) ecosystems are rooted in exclusionary norms and a false notion of being apolitical and fully objective, which has present-day negative consequences for our students. In this essay, we use a bioecological lens to better understand some of the factors that unfairly and disproportionately impact marginalized students in our STEM ecosystems. We focus our discussion on one component of the ecosystem, STEM faculty, and how they can serve as foundation species to direct our STEM ecosystems toward equity and empathy. We share how faculty can interrogate and take ownership for the ways that we perpetuate the exclusionary norms of STEM in our practice. We then propose specific strategies for faculty to nurture comprehensive niche-building to support students inside and outside of our classrooms. Although faculty instructional roles are the focus of this essay, we close with an acknowledgment of some additional opportunities for faculty to leverage their influence through research and institutional leadership to promote equity and inclusion in biology education and STEM ecosystems.