NCSCE

The National Center for Science & Civic Engagement

SENCER Summer Institute 2024

August 1-4, 2024

Humanizing STEM: Higher Education’s Role in Realizing the Social Contract for Science

In 1997 Jane Lubchenco, the incoming President of the American Association for Science, issued a call for “a new social contract for science.” She believed scientists should re-examine their obligations to society in order to serve society better, engage with society, and craft solutions to problems, not just diagnose them. 23 years later, reflecting on her call, Lubchenco believes the scientific community has made much progress in meeting those goals for greater engagement and responsibility in addressing our great civic and social challenges. However, she warns ” the culture of academia continues to impede progress….It is time for strategic, collective action to change the culture of academia and create the enabling conditions for science to serve society better.” 

Since 2001 the thousands of science educators who have adopted SENCER strategies have worked tirelessly to change academic culture and play their part in delivering on the social contract between science and a truly inclusive democratic society. However, higher education institutions, as well as external economic  and political forces, have made this work more difficult than ever through policies and practices that contradict academic values and principles. But while our individual efforts seems like a drop in the ocean, they prove that the world we are working towards is possible, and these efforts have inestimable value to our students, our colleagues, and communities. This meeting’s goal is to recognize, celebrate, and expand the community committed to a more humane, socially responsible educational practice that will make a better future for us all and point the way to “strategic, collective action.”  Each of our Keynote speakers, sessions, and presentations embody this commitment and contribute to this goal.

Meeting Details

As in the recent past, the meeting will be held on Zoom, and all sessions will be sequential and not concurrent.  In addition to keynotes, plenaries and invited sessions we invite proposals of 5 minute lightning talks (recorded or live) featuring individual projects that exemplify SENCER strategies and approaches. 

Registration fee for the four-day meeting will be 150.00, and 100.00 for NCSCE members. To Register click HERE

LINK TO FULL PROGRAM  (PROGRAM IS UPDATED DAILY AND SUBJECT TO ADDITIONS AND CHANGES)

Special topics that will be addressed at this meeting:

  • Climate Justice
  • Fostering Critical Thinking and Evidence-Based Reasoning
  • Water as a Multi-disciplinary Civic Challenge
  • Green Chemistry
  • Homelessness, Housing Insecurity, Redlining
  • Community-Engaged and Course-Based Undergraduate Research

As always, we especially invite proposals for courses, curricula, and community-based education that:

  • Explore the science behind difficult and controversial civic challenges, including Gun Violence, Voter Repression, Redlining, Environmental Racism, Reproductive Rights, abuses of technology and social media.
  • Support equity and access to STEM Learning and Student Success
  • The Integration of Ethics into STEM courses

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 

Mays Imad, Re-Humanizing STEM Education

Dr. Mays Imad’s academic journey began at the University of Michigan–Dearborn, where she pursued philosophy and minored in chemistry. She earned a doctoral degree in cellular & clinical neurobiology, with a minor in biomedical sciences, from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona’s Department of Neuroscience, she joined Pima Community College (PCC), teaching a variety of biology-related subjects. During her tenure at PCC, she founded their Teaching and Learning Center (TLC).  

Currently an associate professor at Connecticut College, Dr. Imad is interested in understanding the social determinants of student wellbeing and success and conducts research on equity pedagogy. Her work reflects a deep commitment to equity and justice in and through education. With fervor, she advocates for institutions to pay close attention to intergenerational trauma and to prioritize healing and wellbeing. She is a Gardner Institute Fellow, Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) Senior STEM Fellow, Mind and Life Institute Fellow, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ). She is co-author of the recent article “Recasting the agreements to re-humanize STEM education.”

Joseph Graves, Social Justice and the Biology of Race

Joseph L. Graves Jr. is a professor in the Department of Biology at North Carolina A&T State University. He is a fellow of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His books include A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems (2022). Graves was named a “Genius Award” honoree by the Liberty Science Center.

David Asai, NCSCE’s 2024 Wm. E. Bennett Award for Civically Engaged Science Education

David Asai was formerly Senior Director for Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and well known to many in the SENCER community for his important advocacy and generous support of inclusive STEM education. His many initiatives supported formal science education at the pre-college, college/university, and graduate levels and all emphasized the importance of advancing inclusive diversity in science, which is primarily the responsibility of the institution in which students learn and train. Just some of those initiatives were Inclusive Excellence, Driving Change, HHMI Professors, the Science Education Alliance (SEA), the Gilliam graduate program.  For his work Dr. Asai received the 2022 Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education.