Summer pilot program aims to increase diversity in engineering

August 6, 2020

If engineers are going to improve the quality of life in the communities they serve, the field must reflect the diversity of those communities.

Black students are particularly underrepresented in engineering, comprising only 4% of U.S. engineering undergraduate students in 2016. According to the National Science Foundation, the number of Black students earning doctoral degrees is rising, especially for students who earned science and engineering bachelor’s degrees from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs — a group of more than 100 higher education institutions which serve primarily Black communities. Graphic of four people interacting with objects representing different areas of science. Diversity in engineering is key to the discipline’s ability to effectively serve all aspects of a community’s needs. Intel Corporation partnered with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee to sponsor students from a historically Black university to gain access to high-impact research and Intel mentors for an eight-week summer engineering pilot program. Graphic courtesy of Shutterstock Download Full Image

Intel Corporation’s HBCU Program aims to provide scholarships and career development opportunities to help increase the number of Black students who graduate with STEM degrees and enter technology careers. To advance a common goal of expanding the pipeline of Black graduate students in STEM, Intel is collaborating with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, an HBCU in Tallahassee, for the ASU/FAMU Summer Engineering Program pilot.

Intel sponsored seven students from FAMU to participate in an eight-week ASU Summer Research Internship, or SURI, where they conducted research with Fulton Schools faculty members and graduate students. The students also received a combined $5,000 stipend from Intel and the Fulton Schools for the summer.

“Summer engineering research helps students envision themselves with a graduate degree in STEM in an industry or academic career,” said Heather Mattisson, Intel strategy manager for university partnerships, global diversity, inclusion and social impact. “It also provides key connections with faculty and exposes students to the rigors of a graduate school experience. Students in the program are gaining additional pathways to a graduate degree with the support of a strong partnership between our organizations.”

The pilot program was conceived last year during the annual Intel HBCU Consortium, at which Intel’s university partners and six HBCUs gather to form new collaborations and share information about Intel’s classroom technology, curriculum and research resources.

“With this partnership in place, students can participate in top research alongside brilliant ASU faculty to really develop their skills, participate in use-inspired research opportunities and gain an understanding of what graduate study might be like,” said Anca Castillo, associate director of engineering student recruitment in the Fulton Schools, who attended the consortium and was instrumental in bringing the partnership together.

The benefits of such a program are far-reaching. Several of the FAMU students say they are now considering advanced degrees after working with ASU faculty members and graduate students and making connections with Intel engineers.

The summer program helped students explore the possibilities of graduate studies at ASU or careers at Intel. But more than that, it solidified just how much both academia and industry as a whole can benefit from increasing diversity through partnerships such as this one.

Screenshot of six people meeting on a Zoom call.

Associate Professor Lalitha Sankar (top right) worked with two FAMU students, Mafuor Tanji (middle right) and Grant Steans (bottom left), to share her research on machine learning and algorithmic fairness issues. They were joined by ASU Summer Research Internship program participant Nathan Stromberg (top left) and doctoral students Tyler Sypherd (middle left) and John Cava (bottom right).

Image courtesy of Lalitha Sankar

Four people attend a Zoom call and discuss object detection.

FAMU electrical engineering major Iyonda Lewis uses Zoom to present what she learned about “enhancing the wisdom of the crowd” from ASU Assistant Professor Adolfo R. Escobedo. Her summer mentor, Todd Younkin, science technical leader of Intel Labs Corporate University Research, and Anca Castillo, Fulton Schools associate director of engineering student recruitment, also joined the call.

Image courtesy of Monique Clement

Screenshot of four people meeting on Zoom.

ASU Assistant Professor Rebecca Muenich (top right) and her graduate students Lorrayne Miralha (top left) and Eleanor Rauh (bottom right) meet with FAMU biomedical engineering major Daeshavon Johnson (bottom left). They merged interest areas for Johnson to work on a project involving the connection of agriculture to biodiversity and biotechnology.

Image courtesy of Rebecca Muenich

Summer program increases access to high-impact research

While the COVID-19 pandemic forced SURI to move online, the program forged ahead with the students conducting research remotely.

Some students elected to partner with faculty members working in areas they were already familiar with due to their majors, while others stepped out of their comfort zones to tackle engineering topics in which they had little experience.

Lalitha Sankar, a Fulton Schools associate professor of electrical engineering, worked with FAMU students Grant Steans and Mafuor Tanji on artificial intelligence, machine learning and decision-making algorithms, particularly in ways that promote fairness and social good. As a woman of color in engineering, she has firsthand experiences with biases in engineering and mathematical sciences that will require diversity to overcome.

“As technology gets applied more and more to human decision-making, it is crucial to make sure that the technology we design is inclusive and designed without bias,” Sankar said. “This, in itself, will benefit from diversity among those designing these tools.”

Grant Steans, an electrical engineering graduate student at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

Grant Steans is already a graduate student studying electrical engineering at FAMU. During his last year as a computer engineering undergrad, he discovered an interest in machine learning, which sparked his decision to continue his studies and conduct research.

“I chose to work with Dr. Sankar this summer because of her theoretical knowledge of machine learning,” Steans said. “Her incorporation of linear algebra to teach things like regression, optimization and the bias/variance trade-off is something I had not experienced in such a detailed manner. She also introduced me to problems that required me to derive different forms of the linear regression algorithm to support my results.”

Steans came away from the experience with a new perspective on his passion and its applications. Before completing the eight-week program, he had already begun to engage his new machine learning skills as a data analyst at a local nonprofit organization in Tallahassee, Florida, We Are All We Need. With a goal of ending youth homelessness in Florida, Steans is using the new data science he learned to create baselines and models for trends in arrests, truancy, recidivism, poverty and other factors to present to city commissioners, mayors and police chiefs to make a difference in the community through social and emotional services and other programs.

“This experience taught me that certain skills that I hold as a researcher map to multiple industries, even though those industries aren’t heavily technical,” Steans said, adding that he shifted his plans for his thesis to align his interests in machine learning and social issues.

“When Grant told me that I had opened this door to him to bring technology to social justice, it just made my hour, day and week,” Sankar said.

Adolfo R. Escobedo, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of industrial engineering, said it is important to increase access to research experiences for underrepresented students. Escobedo himself did not conduct research until graduate school because he didn’t know the opportunities existed.

“Had I engaged in research, I believe I would have enjoyed it, which could have further helped me stay motivated in school,” Escobedo said. “Underrepresented students bring their own unique perspectives and experiences that would bring much needed change in academia and beyond.”

Escobedo worked with four FAMU students: electrical engineering majors Iyonda Lewis and Alex Ndekeng, computer science major Pierre Cireus and industrial engineering major Christina Anderson.

Cireus and Lewis worked with Escobedo on learning about “enhancing the wisdom of the crowd” in two different contexts and how diversity of crowds is important for achieving accurate outcomes. The students developed projects that use crowdsourced data to train computer programs to help budget vacations and to identify objects in images.

Ndekeng worked on understanding technologies for “Power System Planning against Rising Temperatures” and Anderson worked on “Optimization Models for Sustainable Logistics.”

Iyonda Lewis, an electrical engineering undergraduate student at FAMU.

Lewis, who will be a third-year electrical engineering student at FAMU in the fall, worked closely with Yeawon Yoo, one of Escobedo’s industrial engineering doctoral students.

“I got to talk to Yeawon about the ins and outs of graduate school, and how impactful study habits and preparation are at the graduate level,” Lewis said. “She not only encouraged my questions about our topic, but also promoted my improvement and growth, as research can be utilized to contribute knowledge, develop and improve processes.”

Reading research journal papers, learning and practicing new concepts related to object detection and figuring out how to solve engineering problems alongside other students in other majors was a valuable experience for Lewis that changed her outlook about advanced degrees.

“I had a spark about grad school,” Lewis said. “This program made me much more interested than before.”

Rebecca Muenich, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of environmental engineering, worked with FAMU biomedical engineering major Daeshavon Johnson. Despite their completely different focus areas — watershed modeling in agriculture for Muenich and prosthetic development for Johnson — they found common ground in how biomedical engineering could be applied to agriculture through the study of how biodiversity relates to biotechnology through a case study of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil.

“Having one-on-one time with a faculty member who doesn’t control your degree or grade, I think gives students an opportunity to be more open and to expand their skills,” Muenich said. “I hope it also gives them a chance to work on their own science, which I think can help build confidence.”

Faculty members say they were also honored to be a part of a program aimed at increasing access to engineering research for Black students during a time of social change.

“This was a special experience at an extraordinary time in our country’s history,” Sankar said. “I am fortunate to be a part of it in some small form.”

Diverse range of Intel engineers share their experiences

In addition to doing research and making connections with faculty members and graduate students, the FAMU participants were paired with mentors who are professional engineers and computer scientists. Many of the program mentors attended HBCUs or experienced earning advanced degrees and entering the technology industry as underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students.

“The ASU/FAMU Summer Engineering Program is designed to provide holistic support to students,” Mattisson said. “FAMU students have been paired with Intel mentors with graduate degrees who can support students during the program and share their experience in the tech industry.”

FAMU student Grant Steans worked with Intel Technology Development Engineer Collins Adetu, who participated in the pilot from Portland, Oregon, and is also a FAMU alumnus. Adetu’s mentorship was a tremendous help to Steans throughout the program.

“We were able to discuss our struggles of working remotely and my personal goals for this summer,” Steans said. “He helped guide me to the right questions I need to ask myself in terms of this program and my continuing career. He also helped me tailor this experience to understand the full benefit for my professional establishment and continued research opportunities.”

Participants also attended weekly Zoom virtual engagement sessions hosted by Intel engineers and computer scientists in addition to ASU faculty members. They discussed Intel technology and careers, and shared tips that were key to their success in earning advanced degrees and landing jobs in the tech industry.

The students were particularly inspired by the journey of Marcus Kennedy, an alum of the FAMU and Florida State University Joint College of Engineering, who is also an ASU adjunct professor and general manager of Intel's Gaming Division. Kennedy, the leadership sponsor for Intel’s FAMU partnership, earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering before getting a master’s degree in business administration and management. Hearing Kennedy speak about his journey of twists and turns, numerous failures and ultimate success inspired students to think differently about their futures.

“During his presentation, (Kennedy) shared his career path and how his decisions always led back to his greatest passion in life,” Steans said. “It taught me that as long as you can remain true to the things you enjoy in life, things will work out — no matter how many rejections and other obstacles may appear in your career path.”

The pilot program has been a positive experience during a summer of uncertainty and upheaval. Students are leaving the eight-week experience with newfound confidence and perspectives in engineering, unique insight from students in the process of earning advanced degrees and impactful mentors who will continue to meet with them even after the program has ended.

As the summer wraps up, Intel, FAMU and ASU will consider plans for the program’s future and potential for a longer-term partnership.

Monique Clement

Communications specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1958 monique.clement@asu.edu

Global Engagement

ASU class transforms keyboard warriors into community activists

Tempe campus Polytechnic campus

August 4, 2020

Writers’ Studio students are discovering that activism has become an outgrowth of their writing courses

An ASU Online first-year writing program is transforming English composition students from around the country into activists and helping them drive change in their respective communities.

Some of the results?

A controversial school mascot’s name has been changed after 80 years. Stories of racism have been highlighted in a new zine, and a famed World War II fighting squadron is getting more attention at a national museum.

This accidental activism has become an outgrowth of Writers’ Studio, which is directed by Michelle Stuckey along with Ebru Erdem and Zach Waggoner.

“I am absolutely thrilled when I see students making a difference in their communities,” said Duane Roen, dean of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. Roen, along with colleagues Sherry Rankins-Robertson, Tiffany Bourelle and Andrew Bourelle, helped design the course in 2011In 2012, the program received President Crow’s Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Curricular Innovation.. “Feeling agency through writing or speaking up should occur early in life, and this spurs students to want to become engaged in social activism. These courses give them a platform for acting on their passions.”

ASU’s Writers’ Studio is a modality for completing first-year composition online, in which students can choose courses offered in 7 ½ or 15-week intervals.

“But with lots of peer interaction and writing-mentor feedback built into the structure, it’s also a writing community that helps students develop writing practices to be better communicators in all areas of their life: the personal, the professional, the civic and, of course, the academic,” explains Writing Program Administrator Michelle Stuckey, who has led the Writers’ Studio team for the last five years. “Instructors work with students to draw on their experiences and passions in all these arenas to cultivate their own theory and practice as writers.”

When the program launched almost a decade ago, several hundred students enrolled. Now, about 6,000 students participate in Writers’ Studio each year.

“Along the way, students begin to see how they can use writing in the real world to support real work in their communities,” Roen said.

Here’s how three Writers’ Studio students have recently been putting their practice into action:

What's in a name?

Candace Turer

At 33 years old, ASU student Candace Turer is just now discovering the power of the pen.

The Anderson, Ohio, native recently helped convince that township’s school board to change the name of a local high school mascot. It’s the same exact one as the National Football League’s Washington football team.

Turer felt the name was not only racially insensitive but downright racist. She said it has evoked controversy in her township, which is located about 15 minutes from downtown Cincinnati. It was last debated in 2018 but nothing was done.

“Many excuses were given why the name couldn’t be changed: It was tradition or it would cost too much money to rebrand or change the mascot’s name,” Turer said. “I wanted to educate myself and the community on this issue.”

Turer took ENG 105: Advanced First-Year Composition as a Writers’ Studio class in spring 2019. Her paper “Revisiting the Redsk*ns” defined the word, researched its origin, and sought out Native American organizations to ask how they felt about the word. It was unanimous: They said the term was discriminatory and oppressive.

After completing the paper, Turer created a website and posted it online. It jolted the community of 45,000 people, who were narrowly split on the issue. Turer said her paper came at an incredible cost. She received plenty of “backlash and harassment” and moved from her hometown to a place about 45 minutes away.

“Many of us who spoke out early on to change the mascot were doxxed and threatened,” Turer said. “It was a mess and turned into a right vs. left political issue.”

It became a nonissue earlier this month. The Forest Hills Schools District not only read Turer’s paper (which she sent to each school board member the day before the meeting), but hundreds of letters from concerned Native Americans and locals in the community. On July 2, the board passed a motion to retire the mascot. The action received mentions in Sports Illustrated and The New York Times.

“I’m proud of our community because we’re now on the right side of history,” Turer said.

Turer’s story is indicative of the transformational power of gaining confidence as a writer, said Christina Giarrusso, a Writers’ Studio faculty associate.

“Many of our students don’t anticipate becoming activists because this is, after all, an English class,” Giarrusso said. “It’s really dependent on the students, where they choose to go after the course ends. The intention they put in is what the spotlight is all about.”

Taylor Babineaux

New light through old windows

The lack of spotlight on a revered group of African American military fighter pilots is what sparked Taylor Babineaux into action.

It all started when the Lafayette, Louisiana, resident visited nearby New Orleans and toured the National World War II Museum in September 2019. She said as she strolled through the expansive collection of artifacts, she noticed there was something off when she came to a P-51 plane.

“The plane lacked a card or plaque discussing its relevance to the Tuskeegee Airmen. I was also disappointed they did not have a clearly defined exhibit for the Tuskegee Airmen. I felt they weren't as prominent as they should be,” said Babineaux, who is Black. “I noticed the overwhelming amount of visitors were Caucasian and not a lot of minorities. I wanted to see something more inclusive that mirrors society.”

Taking a cue from the Writers’ Studio playbook, Babineaux identified the problem and went to work. She started an online petition to raise awareness and then wrote the museum a letter about her visit. Babineaux found them receptive to her ideas. That was affirmed by Stephanie Verdin, senior director of planning and communications at the museum.

“Taylor Babineaux met with me and the museum’s vice president of education and access Pete Crean on July 11 to discuss how the museum currently tells the Tuskegee Airmen story and her ideas on what we can do to draw more attention to this important history,” Verdin said. She added that in addition to the restored P-51D Mustang painted in the likeness of a “Red Tail” fighter flown during the war, the museum has oral histories, curriculum guides and public programs featuring the Tuskegee Airmen.

Verdin said most recently the museum has not only published several online profiles of the Tuskegee Airmen but on women, LGBTQ individuals, and other minorities.

“Our staff is also exploring different ways that we can enhance how we tell the Tuskegee Airmen history and draw more attention to diverse stories on the site at the museum,” Verdin said. “We look forward to keeping Taylor posted on our progress.”

The museum, incidentally, has a partnership with ASU Online to offer the nation’s first online master’s degree in World War II studies.

Babineaux’s ENG 105 instructor, Sean Tingle, commended the work behind her activism.

“It’s exciting to see her do this and get traction,” Tingle said. “She’s inspired and is learning not only about herself in the process but real community issues. It’s wonderful to see.”

Made in Boise

Woman in classes with pink and white hair

Kennedy Hines

The Black Lives Matter movement has forever changed the way we look at and deal with racism. It has also greatly inspired Kennedy Hines, who attends ASU through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan.

The 21-year-old sustainability major lives in Boise, Idaho, where BLM hasn’t gained much traction or attention.

“Boise’s a bubble and the common belief here is that things like police brutality and racism ‘doesn’t happen here’ or that the police force is somehow different,” said Hines, who credits her Writers’ Studio experience for giving her the confidence to start an important project to document police brutality against people of color in Idaho.

She, along with another friend, Arlie Bledsoe, met with people from all races over a period of a few months to document their experiences with the Boise Police Department. The final result was “It Does Happen Here,” curated stories from victims of police brutality. The 24-page zine amplifies the community stories and has been distributed to the BLM Boise chapter and other activist groups in the Boise area.

“We’ve gone to protests and have handed them out because we noticed there’s a lack of evidence in our community,” Hines said. “We put it out ourselves to let people know this is not OK.”

Hines said the Writers’ Studio has taught her not only how to look for problems in her community but how to be a part of finding resolutions.

“The class not only showed me how to implement those tools but solve problems, look for solutions and pass on the knowledge.”

Stuckey said true knowledge is gained by experience.

“Students realize that once they take action, this is no longer an assignment for a class any longer,” said Stuckey, a clinical assistant professor in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. “They can see how they can have an impact on their communities through writing and research.”

Top photo: Writing Program Administrator Michelle Stuckey has led the Writers’ Studio team for the last five years. About 6,000 students participate in Writers’ Studio each year, many of whom are becoming accidental activists. Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU Now.

Marshall Terrill

Reporter , ASU Now

480-727-5176 marshall.terrill@asu.edu

ASU grad combines passions for activism, videography to forge a path toward filmmaking

July 30, 2020

Jude Schroder arrived at Arizona State University as a National Merit Scholar planning to pursue a career in the foreign service. After discovering a passion for filmmaking, getting involved in activism and gaining a better understanding of their identity, Schroder graduated in May with bachelor's degrees in global studies and political science from the School of Politics in Global Studies, as well as a minor in Spanish and a certificate in political entrepreneurship from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In 2017, Schroder participated in the McCain Institute’s Washington Policy Design Studio program, a valuable experience that came with the realization of no longer wanting to pursue a career in the foreign service. Jude Schroder. Photo by Justin Billy. Download Full Image

“I wouldn't take back my experiences in D.C. and I would still do it again if I could, but it did show me a valuable lesson, which is that I didn't want to go into the foreign service,” said Schroder, who uses they/them pronouns. “When I returned from D.C. I chose to pivot and adapt to something new. I was fortunate enough to be able to explore other courses throughout my undergrad. Overcoming that uncertainty and just trying out new things through ASU was key for me. Being able to take courses outside of my major helped me figure out what I wanted to do. The interdisciplinary aspect of ASU is what makes us super unique.”

Schroder had a deep passion for the arts and took as many creative courses as possible every semester. They also had the opportunity to travel internationally, creating vlogs during their study abroad experience in Barcelona, Spain, and documenting the SolarSPELL project in Fiji.

Combining their love of global studies with videography, Schroder forged a path toward a future in filmmaking.

During their time at ASU, Schroder not only discovered a passion for videography, but also discovered community and learned to embrace themself as someone who identifies as nonbinary and bisexual.

“When I started at ASU I hadn't come out as bisexual or nonbinary yet. There weren't resources for that in my K–12 schooling. Once I got to ASU, I had everything from consent education to women and sexuality courses to LGBT clubs,” they said. “There were a lot of things that I hadn't accepted about myself or my identity before I got to college, so it was really cool to all of the sudden have access to resources and a community and classes where I could learn about who I was.”

Schroder also received support from faculty, including Madelaine Adelman, professor of justice and social inquiry in the School of Social Transformation.

“Dr. Adelman helped me with my thesis and really supported me academically, but she's also supported me professionally whenever I needed advice. She always introduced me to other people that were doing things I was interested in and then even going above and beyond that by helping me personally too,” Schroder said. “When I started working with her on my thesis, I hadn't come out as nonbinary yet. When I came out and told her my new name and pronouns she was the best about it. She’s just been such a great advocate for me professionally, academically and with my personal identity.”

Schroder’s passion for activism and filmmaking culminated in a short documentary-style film created for their Barrett, The Honors College thesis project that examines the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Arizona and the fight to pass it at federal and state levels. After working with the League of Women Voters of Arizona, Schroder became passionate about the ERA and spent a year and a half working on “ERA in AZ,” interviewing leading activists, experts and representatives from the Arizona legislature.

“I worked with women who were around during the 1970s when the ERA was initially passed by Congress and they were trying to get it ratified in Arizona. They've been doing this work for decades and told me they've been trying to make a series of videos on it for a long time but hadn’t found anybody that could do it,” Schroder said. “So I decided to create a documentary that explains the ERA, both from a broader U.S. context and at the Arizona level.”

Schroder debuted the film at a screening in March at the Tempe campus and received an overwhelmingly positive response from the audience. In the future, Schroder plans to pursue a career in activist filmmaking and hopes to go to graduate school for graphic information technology, media studies or fine arts.

“Now my sights are even higher. I want to get the ERA into the constitution and guarantee equality for women. But I also want to make sure that we have an equality act for LGBT people and make sure that people in the LGBT community also have these legal protections.”

Emily Balli

Communications Specialist and Lead Writer, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

eballi@asu.edu

Solutions

Researchers: Diversity needed in health care now more than ever

Downtown Phoenix campus

July 17, 2020

College of Health Solutions faculty collaborate on article that examines the need for a more diverse health care workforce

It's not hard to put a face on health care inequity. The recent death of 26-year-old Sha-Asia Washington is but one of the many that account for the significantly higher rate of pregnancy-related mortality among women of color. And the racial disparities in health outcomes among COVID-19 patients in the U.S. have been widely reported.

“We’re witnessing what happens when you have an inequitable system,” said Swapna Reddy, a clinical assistant professor at Arizona State University. “We’re watching it happen in real time.”

In an article published in June in the Health Professions Education journal, Reddy, Clinical Associate Professor Kristen Will, adjunct faculty Alison Essary and former graduate student Mary Saxon, all of the College of Health Solutions, collaborated with researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine and the University of Puget Sound to examine the effect that the diversity of the health care workforce has on the ability of people of color to access health care equitably.

Reddy, Will and Essary all have varying experience as providers in the health care field, and all share a passion for research that probes health disparities, a topic each of them has taught classes and/or advised on at ASU and Mayo Clinic. A few years ago, when happenstance brought them and the rest of their collaborators together at a conference, they knew they needed to combine forces.

Data analyzed for the resulting article, “Developing Workforce Diversity in the Health Professions: A Social Justice Perspective,” found that only 23% of African Americans, 26% of Hispanics and 39% of Asian Americans have a physician that shares the same race or ethnicity, while for white Americans, that number is 82%.

“There are many studies to show that when you have racial and ethnic concordance — which means the patients and the providers are either of the same or similar racial and ethnic backgrounds — there is a level of trust that's increased and there are better health outcomes,” Reddy said.

Swapna Reddy

The authors of the article, who come from a variety of disciplines and areas of expertise ranging from law to administration to K-12 and postsecondary education, also found that there are big problems with the educational pipeline into the health care field. That leaky pipeline manifests in the majority of people of color in health care professions remaining in entry-level and often lower-paying positions, the authors say.

“This is a social justice issue,” Reddy said. “And especially at this moment, when we’re thinking about systemic inequity, when we’re thinking about systemic racism, the health care system is one of our largest systems in the U.S., and what we see from this health care system is that all of these barriers — whether they are way upstream or directly at the point of care — so many barriers exist that are resulting in worse health outcomes for some of us. Some of our health does not look like the rest of our health. Some of our outcomes do not look like the rest of our outcomes. And we need to take a hard look at that.”

ASU Now sat down with Reddy, Will and Essary to do just that.

Editor’s note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Question: How prepared is Arizona to meet the health care needs of its swiftly diversifying population, both in general and as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Reddy: The reality is that the United States is only becoming a more racially and ethnically diverse nation. We live in one of the states — Arizona — where that shift in demographic is happening faster than in most other places in the U.S. By 2030, in Arizona, we'll be living in a state that will be a minority-majority state. Specifically, the Hispanic population will no longer be a minority in this state. That’s a major shift in our demographics. And where we’re at from a health care system perspective, we don't necessarily have a system that has met its potential in terms of, not just cultural competency, but more importantly, cultural humility. Even with basic stuff like language access, we still have a ways to go. But we also need to understand how health is perceived differently in different cultures, and how those are really important factors that need to be considered as it relates to connecting with patients, connecting with communities and improving outcomes. So until we're at a place where we've improved our recruitment and retention of racial and ethnic minorities in the academic realm of these professions, it's important that those who are already practicing also become more culturally competent and gain more cultural humility to better serve these diverse populations.

What we've seen with the COVID-19 pandemic is just disturbing disparities in not only incidents but also outcomes as it relates to our African American population, our Native American population and our Hispanic population. Hopefully we’re at a precipice in this nation where we're ready to have tough conversations about why that is, and the next step is action.

Q: How did we get to where we are now, with such a lack of diversity in the health care workforce?

Essary: It's a historical remnant from the Flexner Report. The Flexner Report was conducted over 100 years ago to reevaluate medical education in the United States, and as a result of the Flexner Report, a number of medical schools were shut down, and the majority of those that were shut down were medical institutions that served racial and ethnic minority students, particularly students of color, as well as women. And we have yet to recover from that. And I think there are multiple structural inequities that we see in our current education system that reflect that. And when we talk about a leaky pipeline, a lot of the pipeline gaps that exist start in K-12 because of underfunded schools that largely serve students of color. I think it's rather condemning when you look at where the state of our education is right now. And it takes tremendous will to want to change that.

Kristen Will

Will: Over the last decade or two, among all health care professions — occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, pharmacy, etc. — we’ve seen a degree creep. You used to be able to enter these professions with a community college degree. Then they started to require a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree. And as you move up that degree creep ladder, it unfortunately edges out those who have difficulty getting that higher education. And as a result, we've seen an inverse relationship to representation of minorities.

Q: What is being done to correct that, and how can we ensure that going forward, there is more diversity in the health care workforce?

Will: There's a knowledge gap in the generations between students, who are now being taught about health disparity in their regular curriculum, and providers who are already out there in the workforce who really never had that in their training programs. I actually served on a communication and cultural humility task force at Mayo Clinic where we did a lot of teaching around this. So we’re really trying to make sure that we’re making provisions to educate everyone out there in the health care workforce about this, whatever stage in the pipeline they’re at.

Essary: ASU is doing a lot in this regard. One of the initiatives that we started several years ago in the College of Health Solutions is the Summer Health Institute. It’s a pipeline project to enhance workforce diversity in the health care professions. We encourage students from populations that are underrepresented in the health professions to apply and provide them with full funding to attend the program. The last data I saw from that program showed students who participated in it had a matriculation rate and college completion rate that was higher than the national average. Also at the College of Health Solutions is the science of health care delivery program, which was conceived around this integrated, interdisciplinary thinking about how social determinants of health interface with things like health economics, health policy and leadership. We want students to think about how all of these very important components interact in a successful system — or in our case, an unsuccessful system. We've been reluctant as a community, particularly in medicine, to talk about the inequities inherent in the system because it hasn't been perceived as our role, but it is our role. And then one of the most important partnerships that ASU has is with the local community colleges, which allow that next step in education and career pathways for students, from high school to community college to degree completion. Another thing that comes to mind, in my new role at HonorHealth, we're coming together with members of the ASU faculty community, including Swapna and Kristen, to put together a podcast series where experts engage in dialogue around these very topics. That should be launching at the beginning of 2021.

Alison Essary

Reddy: I teach health policy and health disparities and unconscious bias to first-year med students at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine through the Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Alliance for Health Care, and since I’ve been at ASU, I've taught an undergraduate health disparities course at the College of Health Solutions. During that time, I’ve seen a real interest and commitment in not only having specific courses that teach this topic, but in embedding it in the overall curriculum so that every health-related course you take, you should have some thread of equity in there. It shouldn't be something that you have to take a separate course to think about. Even aside from the College of Health Solutions, there’s been a real focus on curriculum development in this space. There are initiatives all across the university in this regard, and I would be leaving so many out if I tried to name them all. There are opportunities to hear amazing speakers and look at research that's happening not just at our university, but across the country. There’s ASU’s connection with the larger community that I think is really important; these amazing connections with our clinical partners and community colleges in the Valley, especially those that serve lower-income communities. Because the big picture is that what we're talking about is these larger inequities that already exist within our society. We’re talking about racism. We're talking about socioeconomic disadvantages. We're talking about substandard school systems. And all of these barriers at the beginning of that pipeline that make it so hard to get to the other end of the pipeline. So I think the larger topic that needs to be addressed is systemic inequity, because it is literally impacting peoples' lives. And I think if we're not framing it that way, we’re frankly not going to move forward. Because it is just that serious, and it is just that big of an issue. Especially at the juncture we're at in our national dialogue. We need to get honest about these conversations or we're going to go nowhere.

Top photo courtesy iStock/Getty images

Emma Greguska

Reporter, ASU Now

(480) 965-9657 emma.greguska@asu.edu

Creativity

Jennings-Roggensack predicts new initiative will improve diversity at ASU Gammage

Tempe campus

July 16, 2020

America must be reflected on stage, backstage and front of house, director says

The recent showing of the Broadway smash hit “Hamilton” on TV showcased several amazing Black actors. But the industry is coming to terms with the fact that it needs to be more diverse in all areas.

The Broadway League, a trade association of theater owners, producers and others in the business, pledged last month to perform a wide-ranging audit of diversity in the industry, prompted by the rising awareness of systemic racism in the country.

Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, executive director of ASU Gammage, whose programming includes touring Broadway shows, is on the board of directors of the Broadway League. She also is Arizona’s only voter for the annual Tony Awards.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Jennings-Roggensack told the New York Times about the new diversity initiative. “As wonderful as the field is, I often am the only one in the room.”

Jennings-Roggensack, who also is vice president for cultural affairs at ASU, answered some questions from ASU Now.

Question: What is the Broadway League?

Answer: The Broadway League is the service organization that oversees all of Broadway and what we call “the road,” which brings in New York Broadway shows. That includes producers, directors and presenters. I’m considered a presenter.

It also includes general managers, booking agents, press agents, marketing press people and theater owners.

The Broadway League began as an organization of theater owners, and then it was like a lightbulb went off that “the Broadway business is a much larger ecosystem,” which includes the road and a lot of other folks.

Q: Why is this audit important?

A: I’m a member of the board of directors and also on the executive committee and I chair several other committees, legislative, labor and government relations.

For many years, I was the only person of color on the board. There are two now and it’s a board of 49.

Broadway is often called “the longest road in America,” but it is not reflective of America.

When you come into a Broadway house, you want to see an audience that reflects America and a stage that reflects America. You want to know that behind the scenes, the crews, and the front of the house and the administration all reflect America.

Q: What has the Broadway League been doing in terms of diversity?

A: I chaired the first equity, inclusion and diversity committee that began to put programs together and we have 19 now.

This isn’t new but the sense of urgency is new.

We did an internship program in which ASU had the first ATPAM intern — the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers. Jeremy Gillett was our first one and he is active not only on stage but also in the commercial film world. As an intern, he met with Erik Birkeland, who was the company manager for the show “Memphis,” and he took him through his job of what it means to be a company manager, the kinds of things you have to do, like payroll, making sure people are healthy, get the show in, be the contact with the producers and presenters. There are very few company managers of color.

We had seven young people go through our Broadway League ATPAM program and many have jobs across country and a couple are working in New York.

Then the Broadway League started the Broadway Fellowship for someone who is older and already engaged but the way you get into this business is who you know. Now we’re looking at expanding that, having more fellows in more houses. We’re looking at an overall larger commitment.

One thing that’s very interesting in our field is that people say, “We opened a job and only white people applied for it.”

We say, “Where were you advertising? Who are you talking to?”

We’re looking at job fairs not just at the collegiate age but at the high school age so young people can think, “I want to be a producer,” “I want to be a general manager,” or “I want to be a press agent.”

Do you know there was only one black press agent in all of New York City? Irene Gandy. And do you know how many press agents there are? A gazillion.

Q: So how will the Broadway League try to expand its commitment to diversity?

A: First and foremost, we will look at hiring an equity, diversity and inclusion senior director to look at all of the league’s programs. Is this program doing what it hopes to accomplish? Does it need a boost or is it not working and we need something else?

I sit on the labor committee so we would like the Broadway unions and guilds to be partners with us in this effort. The International Association of Stage and Technical Engineers is not a very diverse group in the back of the house.

We will look at anti-racism and unconscious bias training at the board level as well as staff and in the organizations we represent.

All of the companies on Broadway are undergoing their own conversations with their performers and creative teams and technical people. This is the entire industry coming together to do this.

We’re looking at partnerships with groups like Black Theater United, which is doing this work, and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition.

Now what we need to do is visibly see the numbers. We need to set goals and standards for ourselves and keep to them.

Q: What changes will we see at Gammage?

A: We have been strongly committed to equity and inclusion but we look at our backstage. We’re proud we have women backstage but we’ve not had great diversity back there in terms of Black, Indigenous and people of color. We’re hoping you’ll see a difference there.

Likewise you will see some of it in the front of the house, our house staff and usher staff, but we want you to see more of it there and at the box office. So you feel welcome.

I’m the first person of color to run Gammage and I’ve been doing it for 28 years but I hope the senior team expands and we look at ways to do that.

I think ultimately we’ll see the difference on the stage as Broadway follows through with this commitment. We’ll see different plays and musicals and we’ll see a difference in who writes them, who writes the music and who is conducting in the pit.

Q: Broadway closed on March 12 due to the pandemic. Are you worried about the future?

A: Yes. That’s why I start (meetings on Zoom) at 6 a.m.

We’re probably looking at January 2021 for Broadway reopening but we also have to know that people are coming from all over the world and they have to be safe. The actors have to be safe. And the musicians in the pit and the crews and the wigmakers and the dressers and everyone has to be safe. We have to get COVID under control.

But we’re able to do this work because we’re home. One of the things that has been really amazing and wonderful is how the Black Lives Matter movement has permeated so many different fields and so many industries and it’s caused us to look at ourselves and see how we can do better and see who we can partner with.

This is a lifelong commitment for so many of us.

Top image: Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, executive director of ASU Gammage, is on the board of directors of the Broadway League, which is launching a diversity audit of the industry. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

Mary Beth Faller

Reporter , ASU Now

480-727-4503 marybeth.faller@asu.edu

Discoveries

Special education has tough transitions, great opportunities ahead

Tempe campus West campus

July 16, 2020

ASU expert says providing an education to students with disabilities presents both complex challenges, unexpected possibilities

COVID-19 forced all teaching in Arizona to go to an all-online format this past spring, including special education supports and services.

Special education district leaders and teachers quickly made the transition to finish out the semester, but they face serious complications — and unexpected opportunities — to build equitable and inclusive practices in the fall.

To get a better perspective on the issue, ASU Now spoke with Arizona State University’s Lauren Katzman, executive director of the Urban Collaborative, which is housed in ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

The Urban Collaborative works with school districts across the country that are committed to leading inclusive and equitable education for students with disabilities. Katzman said the COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges, opportunities and a period of examination regarding special education.

Lauren Katzman

Question: How easy was it for educators who teach students with disabilities to transition to online learning?

Answer: It was and it is still not easy to conduct school virtually without time to effectively plan and test different options. I am in awe of the educators doing this work. In just a few days, they moved from traditional in-person to a virtual education. I am inspired by the families who have taken on the education of their children, most while working from home. Families of students with disabilities get an extra round of applause! No matter how many have risen to the challenge, creating a new system while living through a pandemic has been very difficult.

Districts had to start by making sure students had access to technology and Wi-Fi. Many used busses to get technology to students, in effect, addressing some of the technology access gaps in our schools. Some of the Urban Collaborative districts configured the actual busses as Wi-Fi hotspots to assure students had internet access.

Districts had to make sure that teachers could use the technologies and families could support their children. Some of our districts ran webinars, and some simply got on the phone with families to walk them through the technology. Some teachers ended up talking about academic and emotional issues with families. As one district leader told me, families “are pulling out their hair trying to deal with mental health problems.”

There was and still is confusion on how to manage students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), a legal document that provides a plan to ensure students with disabilities’ access to the curriculum. This is done by minimizing the barriers brought on by disabilities and maximizing opportunities for students to succeed as do their peers without disabilities. IEPs have been developed to be implemented in schools, with many scheduled to the minute and aligned to the actual educator who will provide the service. This is difficult to replicate in a virtual environment.

This barrier forced some positive practices. We heard from districts that their inclusive practices were increasing, as special and general educators had to plan together to create virtual learning environments. Collaborative planning allowed the special education supports to be built into lessons, providing the student with a disability with what they need in a class with their peers. Districts also embraced teletherapies and conducted virtual IEP meetings with families. To this end, one district told us that they hope to continue virtual IEP meetings, as it allowed families to participate without the need for childcare or travel.

Q: What are some things you can’t transfer?

A: Providing an education to students with complex disabilities can be extremely difficult, especially for those with intellectual disabilities. I would not say that this is impossible, but definitely difficult. There are schools doing a phenomenal job of including each and every student, however, many of these schools were on this path before the pandemic hit. It is difficult to plan for students who might communicate with technology to use a second piece of technology for academic instruction. There are some students who simply may not connect well to technology at all. There are examples, such as students without cognitive disabilities reading to those with this disability, students participating in virtual morning meetings to keep social connections, and for older students with intellectual disabilities, some have been able to work on developing skills they might need to have a job. For many of them, there is a need for more time and support from family members.

The other aspect of special education that has been difficult to conduct are evaluations, particularly initial evaluations. The process of assessing how a student learns and what might help them to be able to succeed in school is difficult to do virtually. Assessments require communication and the use of tools, such as academic achievement assessments that are not yet found to be reliable as an online assessment.

Q: How would you advise educators and school districts to address questions surrounding compliance?

A: Compliance is a part of the makeup of special education and it is meant to protect students. Compliance is focused on the provision of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and includes timeliness, assurance that students are receiving their services and receiving them in the least restrictive environment. The issue that the disability rights community is focused on is protecting the civil rights of students with disabilities. The issue that districts are focused on includes these civil rights concerns, and they are also focused on compliance timeliness and assurances that students are receiving their individualized services. The Department of Education has provided unclear guidance regarding compliance with special education regulations when school is being held virtually. That said, if districts can document that they have tried to provide special education services and they have reached out to families, I believe that puts them in a stronger position and, if they can follow state guidelines, districts will be in an even stronger legal standing. It is my belief that figuring out how to develop services in the midst of a pandemic should not be considered a violation of those protections.

Q: What are some of the opportunities that have arisen out of the pandemic that might be worth using in the future?

A: While closing in-person schools because of a pandemic is horrific, districts have developed many opportunities that I hope they continue to embrace. The most important one is a focus on inclusion and equity. Districts have used the shift to a virtual education to create more inclusive practices and to reevaluate the practice of educating students with disabilities in a separate environment or pulling students with disabilities out of their general education class to provide special education services. Circumstances have required teachers to plan collaboratively and students to be taught together. We know from the research that this works, and we are hearing success stories from districts with vows to never go back.

Urban Collaborative members have told me that they have had to become more creative in how they engage students and families, that the increased district communication with state directors has connected educators and allowed them to share practices. We facilitated seven Zoom meetings with as many as 150 people where district leaders and field experts shared their practices with each other.

The pandemic has also heightened awareness and opened more conversations on the intersection of race and disability. I want to see these talks continue and grow. Families of African American and Latinx students with disabilities are concerned about their children’s relationship with law enforcement, and those in law enforcement who are in schools, are concerned that they are not trained as educators. For example, addressing the needs of a student with autism who needs de-escalation is an educational issue, rather than a criminal one. Let’s take this time to examine this practice and focus on what is right for students.

Q: Speaking of the future, how do you see this issue moving forward?

A: Most states have been focused on preparing for three models; all-virtual, blended virtual and in-person within social distancing guidelines, and fully in-person within social distancing guidelines. Districts are confused, but are now in the process of preparing. As one district leader said, “The plan is that we will let you know what the plan is.” I am on one district’s school reopening committee and the complexities are quite overwhelming. How do we keep students safe? How do we keep educators safe? How do we provide a high-quality, equitable education for all? How do we provide special education supports and services so that students with disabilities are able to succeed in school during these trying times? What I hope districts do is to keep in mind the health and well-being of students and staff with equity as a focal point when planning for the upcoming school year. Education has changed and my hope is that while we are in the midst of this pandemic, we deal with the barriers, but more importantly, we find and embrace inclusive and equitable opportunities for all students.

Top photo courtesy of iStock/Getty Images.