The historic underrepresentation of women, certain racial and ethnic minorities, and members of other marginalized groups in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) reflects a disproportionate exit of individuals from these academic and career paths due to both environmental and personal factors. To transition successfully from classroom-based learning to the research environment, students must acquire various forms of capital nested within a largely hidden curriculum that most scientists learn informally. We have developed a semester-long course for undergraduate researchers that makes explicit concepts and strategies that contribute to STEM persistence. The course teaches skills for: 1) scientific communication; 2) maximizing the effectiveness of research mentoring relationships; and 3) navigating scientific culture and its interactions with multiple social identities. We offered the course for three consecutive semesters at the University of Massachusetts Boston to 33 students from different backgrounds, academic majors, and educational experiences. Quantitative and qualitative assessments demonstrated student learning in all three areas of emphasis. By deliberately combining instruction and practice in skills, such as those needed to present and critique scientific research, with skills needed to optimize personal interactions and key research relationships, we have created a novel learning experience to promote persistence in STEM.

Vol. 20, No. 3

September 01, 2021

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History

Submitted: 19 March 2020

Revised: 12 March 2021

Accepted: 14 April 2021

Information

© 2021 D. M. Wrighting et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2021 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

This work was made possible through funding support from the National Research Mentoring Network to UMass Boston and the Broad Institute (U54GM119023), a National Human Genome Research Institute grant to the Broad Institute (R25HG006682), and the National Cancer Institute to UMass Boston–Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center U54 Partnership (U54156734-06A1). Development and execution of the course was also supported by the IMSD NIGMS award R25GM076321 to UMass Boston. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We would like to acknowledge and thank the following individuals for helpful discussion about course content, evaluation, and preparation and critical review of this article: Rachel Skvirsky, Claudia Heske, Joan Becker, Karen Burns White, Christine Sorkness, Angela Kaczmarczuk, Christine Pfund, Brian White, Anthony DePass, Daniel Gundersen, Hannah Sevian, Eboney Hearn, Linda Breisch, Francie Latour, Brandon Ogbunu, Gabriela Serrato Marks, Rosalyn Negrón, and Erin Dolan. We thank Chanel Fields for her help in compiling data on time spent on course components, Abigail Shain for designing the course’s final presentation program booklets, and Meredith Fedorovsky for help with tables and illustrations.

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