This study reveals how Postbaccalaureate Research Education Programs (PREP) enable growth and development among participants along domains of readiness for academics, research, and presentation of themselves as legitimate future scientists. All domains contribute to formation or growth of an identity as a future PhD student and scientist.

In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 52 college graduates as they entered a Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP). Our goal was to investigate what it means for these aspiring scientists, most of whom are from groups underrepresented in the sciences, to feel ready to apply to a doctoral program in the biomedical sciences. For our analysis, we developed and used a theoretical framework which integrates concepts from identity-inpractice literature with Bourdieu's formulation of cultural capital and also examined the impact of racial, ethnic, and gender identities on education and career trajectories. Five patterns of identity work for expected engagement with PREP grew out of our analysis: Credential Seekers, PI Aspirants, Path Builders, Discipline Changers, and Interest Testers. These patterns illuminate differences in perceptions of doing, being, and becoming within science; external and internal foci of identity work; and expectations for institutional and embodied cultural capital. Our findings show that preparing for graduate education is more complex than acquiring a set of credentials as it is infused with identity work which facilitates readiness beyond preparation. This deeper understanding of individual agency and perceptions allows us to shift the focus away from a deficit model where institutions and programs attempt to "fix" students, and to offer implications for programs designed to support college graduates aspiring to become scientists. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptIt is well known that African American, Hispanic, and Native American students are underrepresented in the sciences, including the biological sciences (Chen, 2009; National Academies of Science, 2011; National Science Foundation [NSF], 2013). This underrepresentation increases as students progress through higher education. While African American and Hispanic students receive around 16% of bachelor degrees in the biological sciences, they represent only about 11% of the graduate students in these fields and around 7% of the PhD recipients (NSF, 2013). At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, in the biological sciences, minority students are less apt to persist in the major to degree than are other students (Bass, Rutledge, Douglass, & Carter, 2007;Griffith, 2010). The literature on persistence identifies a number of factors contributing to these patterns including educational affordability; admissions policies and practices; educational experience and quality; social and academic integration; and faculty-student mentorship (Proirier, Tanenbaum, Storey, Kirshstein, & Rodriguez, 2009).While we acknowledge the role institutions play in student persistence, in this study, we aim to better understand individuals' experiences and perceptions at a specific decision point within a biomedical career trajectory that has not been researched. Specifically, we use indepth one-on-one interviewing to explore why 52 academically talented college gra...

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Committee on Minority Affairs (CMA) endeavors to support all chemistry faculty and staff as they educate all of our students during this pandemic.While the chemistry education community and the ACS have both provided resources as most institutions transitioned to virtual platforms, this pandemic disproportionally affects our students of color, lower socio-economic and rural backgrounds, and students with disabilities.Specifically, these students must overcome hurdles of technology access, environmental disruptions, and cultural pressures in order to be successful. Therefore, CMA has formulated partnerships with both academic and industrial institutions to highlight some best practices to improve future virtual learning experiences of these oftentimes marginalized students.Specifically, the work presented here examines programs and policies at three academic institutions with very different student body demographics and surrounding learning environments (

The College of New Jersey’s Chemistry Department and School of Science have been strategically transforming our teaching, learning, and mentoring environments for over a decade through programs that are targeted toward “new majority” students: low-income, first generation, and historically marginalized races and ethnicities. Recently, we shifted from programs that target a small number of students to focus on systemic and structural changes to create inclusive excellence. We formalized our work in a Theory of Change (ToC) that emphasizes mechanisms for our faculty to depart from traditional pedagogy to become experimentalist teachers who use evidence-based practices and data to support our student success. The ToC is built on three pillars: (1) gaining empathy and understanding of our students, (2) a changing toolkit of acceptable pedagogical practices, and (3) a process to create shared language and values and an understanding of our responsibilities to our students. By focusing on mechanism, we do not prescribe a single pedagogy but instead are flexible for different course contexts. Department work on the ToC allowed our faculty to pivot instead of panic during the shift to online instruction. The students noted smooth transitions to remote learning, and more importantly, departmental discussions regarding pedagogy helped faculty to support each other with suggestions and sharing of best practices. As a department, we learned a great deal during the pandemic that furthers our collective work toward inclusive excellence and believe our ToC is transferable to other institutions.

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