An effective Learning Assistant (LA) Program provides benefits for both Learning Assistants (LAs) and faculty, in addition to benefits for students. By analyzing LA and faculty reflections, weekly preparation sessions, and interviews with LAs and faculty, we can better understand the partnerships that develop between faculty and their LAs. We leverage a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to investigate the types of LA expertise and skills faculty value and how this affects the formation of these partnerships. The Preparation Session Observation Tool (PSOT), developed from this work, can be used by LAs, LA Program Coordinators, and faculty to reflect on the types of LA partnerships that emerge, and how these partnerships can be used in constructing effective learning environments. We anticipate that this tool can then be used to help LAs, coordinators, and faculty modify their working relationship to develop the type of partnerships that are best for their particular instructional setting. PSOT provides a finer-grained analysis to three broad partnership classifications that exist along a continuum: mentor-mentee, facultydriven collaboration, and collaborative.

The Access Network is an organization that supports vibrant interactions among students and faculty who advocate for equity work in the physical sciences. This paper uses McGee and Bentley's framework of "equity ethic" (EE) to understand how Access student leaders adopt and refine a commitment to equity and social justice work within the physical sciences. In McGee and Bentley's study of STEM students of color, they define EE as students' sense of altruism and collectivism within and outside of their communities. Through interviews with student leaders, we model components of students' EEs and how their EEs are influenced by their participation in Access. Student accounts illustrate that they are invested in improving equity within their disciplinary communities and see progress toward these goals as an important measure of success. Our findings highlight how students are already infusing an EE into their professional physics activities. This research suggests that student leaders benefit from having opportunities to articulate and refine critiques of disciplinary culture, and connect their EE to their professional practices. These accounts suggest that this work occurs in conversation with other equity leaders around issues of social justice.