Course Description & Content: This is a seminar for graduate students in Mathematics at Oregon State University. The
recent findings and recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in Sexual Harassment of
Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), from the National
Academies Press, suggest that a strong and diverse leadership is needed to facilitate change at the highest levels of
academic institutions that enable:
- increased representation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM and thus in
mathematics, and
- removal of barriers for their success.
Graduate students are the future leaders of academic
institutions. Training for students in understanding how inequities and injustice are perpetrated within a system of
oppression such as an academic institution of higher learning, is important in creating pathways for effective and sustained
change. The seminar will aim to address and dispel myths around who can be a mathematician in order to create constructive
models for sustained change in representation in mathematical communities.
In Winter 2019, we will cover the following topics. Unless specified otherwise, I will be leading the discussion of each topic.
- Week 1: Social Identities and Allyship
- Week 2: Analyzing Oppression and Privilege
- Week 3: Stereotype Threat
- Week 4: Advancing Cultural Competency in Learning Environments
(Scott Vignos, Assistant Vice President, Strategic Diversity Initiatives, Office of Institutional Diversity)
- Week 5: Implicit Bias (Anne Gillies, Director: Search Advocate Program)
- Week 6: Directed Reading Program (DRP) Networks to Broaden Participation in Mathematics
(Naveen Somasunderam, Math Graduate Student)
- Week 7: Fragility (Susan Shaw, Professor, CLA)
- Week 8: Navigating Heteronormativity in the Sciences: A Safe zone project
(Michael Lopez, Math Graduate Student)
- Week 9: Creating Effective, Inclusive, and Sustainable Mathematics Outreach
(Sarah Hagen, Math Graduate Student)
- Week 10: Writing a Diversity Statement for Tenure Track Applications.