NSF Awards: 2119902
Learn about the NSF INCLUDES Alliance of Students with Disabilities for Inclusion, Networking, and Transition Opportunities in STEM (TAPDINTO-STEM). Through the collective impact of the TAPDINTO-STEM Alliance, persons with disabilities nationwide will be empowered to succeed in STEM disciplines by:
- Increasing the quantity of students with disabilities completing associate, undergraduate, and graduate degrees in STEM.
- Facilitating the transition of students with disabilities from STEM degree completion into the STEM workforce.
- Enhancing communication and collaboration among institutions of higher education, industry, government, national labs, and local communities to address the education needs of students with disabilities in STEM disciplines.
The video presentation will introduce viewers to the project.
Overtoun Jenda, Pl
Daniela Marghitu, Co-Pl
Brittany McCullough, Co-Pl
Carl Pettis, Co-Pl
David Shannon, Co-Pl
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Welcome to the NSF INCLUDES TAPDINTO-STEM Alliance video showcase. We are in our first year as an INCLUDES alliance and are building on prior experience as NSF Research in Disability Education alliances.
Vision: Through the collective impact of the NSF INCLUDES TAPDINTO-STEM Alliance, postsecondary students with disabilities nationwide will be empowered to succeed in STEM disciplines.
Ask us questions about our research projects, about empowering students with disabilities to succeed in STEM and transition to careers. Our project team looks forward to connecting with you.
Alexis Petri, alliance backbone and Midwest Hub lead
Kelly Riedinger
Daniela Marghitu
Scott Bellman
Andrew Buck
Cali Anicha
This is exciting - I look forward to learning more about the pathways/models your groups are using and finding beneficial - will visit your website! Thank you for making the time to create and share this video.
Kelly Riedinger
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Overtoun Jenda
Assistant Provost and Professor of Mathematics
Thank you so much Cali. We will disseminate our findings. Let us keep in touch.
Alexis Petri
Lisette Torres-Gerald
I am SO happy you are doing this work! It is very needed, but in reading the literature, one of the biggest challenges to keeping disabled students in STEM is the transition from high school to college / first year of undergraduate education. Is that something the alliance is considering?
I am also curious as to how employers are involved in the transition from college to graduate school/workforce because you can give students "access" to jobs by providing information, job fairs, etc. but the employers need to hire and retain them.
Nuria Jaumot-Pascual
Scott Bellman
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Scott Bellman
Manager, DO-IT Center
Lisette, Great points! Indeed, more support is needed for student transitions. NSF INCLUDES TAPDINTO-STEM is building an Alliance for enhancing communication and collaboration among institutions of higher education, industry, government, national labs, and local communities to address the needs of students with disabilities in STEM disciplines. Our goal is to have employers participating in a variety of activities, including hiring students.
While the transition from high school to college is not a primary focus of our Alliance, many of our institutes of higher education have shared that they are interested in recruiting high school students with disabilities and learning about ways to support local high schools. The Alliance members have a lot of expertise in this area, and we are learning from one another all the time. We are so fortunate for this opportunity to learn and grow together.
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Andrew Buck
Learning and Development Consultant
Agreed - postsecondary transition is critical, because students with disabilities transition to college programs at lower rates. Our Alliance includes community colleges, too, to increase persistence through Associate's degrees and transition to the workforce or Bachelor's degrees, and our Bridge Mentoring model across campuses provides opportunities for faculty advising, peer-to-peer support, and business networking through on-campus and online activities. At OSU, we have developed a partnership with JP Morgan Chase, which has built an internship pipeline for Work-Based Learning that may lead to employment, and we are forging a partnership with Southwest Airlines, which also hosts internship opportunities nationwide. The National Alliance also includes many other industry partners with the same goal. While access is the first key step, as you noted, our alliance aims to increase successful transition to the workforce, and we will be studying the mentoring intervention alongside other variables to find factors that are positively correlated with advanced degree and employment outcomes. You can learn more about our studies on the NSF Award Abstract: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_I... and our project website: https://tapdintostem.org/
Daniela Marghitu
Alexis Petri
Lisette Torres-Gerald
You all are doing great work! I'm excited to see what happens!
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Andrew Buck
Learning and Development Consultant
The Ohio State University, Gallaudet University, Landmark College, and Purdue University are proud partners of this National INCLUDES Alliance and are excited to represent the Northeast Region. Together with Auburn, other Regional Hubs, and an expanding list of schools yet to join our team, we will advance equity in STEM education and transform the future workforce. Advancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields by tapping into our nation's vast talent pool is necessary to develop and diversify solutions for our world's most pressing problems. Thank you for supporting our Alliance!
You can learn more about the Northeast Hub on our project website: https://tapdintostem.org/northeast-hub/Alexis Petri
Scott Bellman
Daniela Marghitu
As a Co-PI of NSF INCLUDES TAPDINTO-STEM Alliance, Auburn University STEM faculty/researcher, and person with physical disabilities, I am so proud and grateful to be part of this first National INCLUDES Alliance for STEM postsecondary students with disabilities.
We are looking forward to answering any questions you might have and collaborate with each and one of you toward better serving our young people with disabilities.
Thank you for all that you do!
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Scott Bellman
Aditya Thakur
Amazing to see how the program will help students with disabilities network with major tech companies and enhance their communication skills!
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Sheryl Burgstahler
Agreed!
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Charlotte Cepeda
So excited at the possibilities!
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Charlotte, thank you. I am excited to be working with you on the project!
Sheryl Burgstahler
Do any attendees who work with other INCLUDES projects have promising practices to share regarding their work with students or faculty who have disabilities?
Daniela Marghitu
Hello Sheryl, I have a project for visual impairers student that I would love to share with you. I will follow up via email.
Sheryl Burgstahler
Thanks, Daniela, but this group might want to hear about your project too.
Daniela Marghitu
Full disclosure, these 2 projects are NOT currently funded by an NCLUDES award but I have been a CO-PI of two INCLUDES awards.
1. This is Das, Meenakshi master thesis focused on “Accessible Computer Science for K-12 Students with Disabilities”: http://etd.auburn.edu/handle/10415/7637
The references include few of the related published papers
2. These are two papers related with the second project “Developing A Multimodal Platform to Teach Mathematics to Students with Vision-Impairment” I would like to share:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-78095-1_10
https://www.thinkmind.org/index.php?view=article&articleid=spwid_2019_1_10_80021
This project was focused initially on students but now we are also working on making it accessible, as well, for teachers with disabilities.
Looking forward to hear about other projects that sustain the inclusiveness of students and educators with disabilities and I am, as always, open for collaborations!
Karen Mutch-Jones
Senior Researcher/Center Director
I was delighted to hear about this new(ish) Alliance and your highly coordinated effort to recruit and mentor students with disabilities. I appreciated seeing the coordination of the project via the Hubs, and I wondered how researchers in each Hub are sharing program implementation data and outcomes data for students in their region. How do/will lessons learned in one Hub be shared and used by others within the Alliance? You mention an overarching goal of preparing students to take advantage of opportunities in STEM--what type of data might be indicators of this, in this early stage of work. Thank you for creating this important Alliance - I know the STEM education field will benefit greatly from your work.
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Karen, great questions. We have a backbone and team structure that brings the hubs together regularly and the full alliance through webinars and annual events. Each hub has a research project and the backbone also collects data pertaining to internships, community-engaged learning, undergraduate research, mentoring, and other types of early stage work. We will be be publishing and sharing products. Based on the discussion and interest from this opportunity, we have a quarterly e-newsletter. If you would like to be added to it, please email me - Alexis Petri, petria@umkc.edu. Thank you.
Karen Mutch-Jones
Senior Researcher/Center Director
Thank you for your response. I would like to receive quarterly newsletters and will email.
Sharing results across hubs is so important and quite pragmatic--it's informative and expedient to learn what is working and to share challenges and solutions. The team backbone sounds critical for enabling each hub to engage their communities but also to collect and share data across hubs...and, at some point, with those of us external to the project. We could learn a great deal from your work. Best wishes!
Galvin Guerrero
With diversity, equity, and inclusion gaining renewed importance and attention in higher education, this effort is a critical step in that direction.
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Thank you for sharing. I agree and hope DEI includes people with disabilities too.
Sheryl Burgstahler
Agreed. We can all play a role in our units and campuses to make sure that disability is included as one diversity area to be addressed AND that within diversity efforts for other marginalized groups, people with disabilities who also members of those groups are fully included and the accessibility of activities and resources that result from these efforts are fully accessible to individuals with a wide variety of disabilities.
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Chris Atchison
Professor
So happy to see this project taking off. Are there opportunities for other stakeholders to onboard? K12, 2YC, universities, STEM industries that are not in the current network? How are students being given opportunities to extend their own networks and find mentoring to help them pursue STEM careers in their fields of interest?
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Thank you for your questions and your interest. There will be more opportunities for other stakeholders to onboard. Please email me (I serve as the alliance backbone) Alexis Petri petria@umkc.edu. I will add you to our quarterly newsletter where we share opportunities and news. Students participate in mentoring that is designed to help empower them and facilitate early career building such as internships and undergraduate research. These types of opportunities help students explore their interests, build their networks, and keep motivated.
Andrew Buck
Chris Atchison
Catherine Horn
Moores Professor and Chair
Thank you for this important effort. Would love to understand more about how the hubs were identified and established and how they are being sustained? What kinds of data are hubs collecting and do these data align across hubs? Said differently, is there interest in a meta-connection across hubs or is there more focus on ensuring the greatest health of individual hubs only on their own?
Thanks for all you are doing!
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Scott Bellman
Manager, DO-IT Center
Catherine,
As Alexis points out, the Hubs were established based on earlier work, such as leading alliances funded by the NSF Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) program. The NSF INCLUDES TAPDINTO-STEM Alliance and the Hubs aspire to create strong and impactful partnerships from various sectors to develop sustainability plans.
The Alliance website includes a map showing the Hub locations. Each Hub is leading a research project, and many of the projects are Alliance-wide. The following websites include a description of research activities for each Hub:
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Great questions - I clicked on your profile and see we are part of similar departments :-) The hub leads all had former NSF Research in Disability Education Alliance grants. In applying for this grant we reached out geographically to parts of the country where we did not have connections. Your question is a difficult one. I have begun typing an answer and deleted it several times. I am curious what my colleagues think? In this first year, I feel I have focused more on the overall alliance than the midwest hub, with which my colleague has focused. That could be because of my role as the backbone, which is focused on the alliance as a whole.
Andrew Buck
Catherine Horn
Moores Professor and Chair
Alexis - so appreciate your answer and your focus on the overall alliance (in healthy tension/balance with the midwest hub). Will be excited to watch this work as it continues to deepen. The collective impact work is so critical and so complicated, especially as efforts present to stitch together centers of excellence.
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Dave Shannon
Thanks to all who commented on the research component of our alliance. We have planned six research studies that will be underway by Fall 2022. These studies are focused on examining variables related to the academic success and transition to the STEM field. We will collect and analyze data from students, faculty, administrators, and institutional context in six regions of the country. We look forward to sharing and discussing this research with the INCLUDES professional network over the next several years.
Andrew Buck
Vilma Reyes
This is a great initiative. Persons with disabilities needs these kinds of support from the government and the community. They, too, are an integral part of our society.
Alexis Petri
Andrew Buck
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
100 percent! Thank you.
Angeline Cartwright
This is very exciting! It is nice to see more support for STEM students with disabilities, networking opportunities are so important.
Alexis Petri
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Thank you!
Rochelle Bowyer
I am excited to see this movement grow and take root. I often feel alone in settings where I know I am the only disabled student. It makes it harder for me to advocate for what I need if I see more staff and people like me reflected it will make it easier to speak for myself
Alexis Petri
Daniela Marghitu
Dear Rochelle,
Thank you for the candid comments very similar to the comments I heard from the many young people with disabilities I mentored over the years. I also feel sometimes alone in settings where I am the only disabled faculty so I can’t agree more with the need of breaking barriers for the inclusion of PWD in all aspects of our society. Looking forward to hear more from you.
Alexis Petri
Sr. Director
Rochelle, thank you for your comment. I hope that we can help make it easier for people with disabilities to discuss their needs and help other colleges and universities increase their efforts. Sometimes I think the idea of a tipping point has a lot of merit. If we continue to connect all of the great work that is being done and continue to come together, eventually things will change. Please contact me at petria@umkc.edu so that I can add you to our quarterly mailing list. There may be opportunities to connect that will interest you and where you will not be the only person with a disability. - Alexis
Sheryl Burgstahler
I agree!
Lynn Cominsky
I am very interested in the high school to college transition experiences of your participants. This is the area on which we are focusing for our neurodiverse teens that are participating in NASA's Neurodiversity Network (N3). I will be signing up for your mailing list and would welcome the opportunity to further connect with you about our mutual interests.
Scott Bellman
Manager, DO-IT Center
Thanks Lynn! I enjoyed watching your video (narrated by a student!) about the N3 project. I'm happy to hear that you're interested in the activities of the Alliance.
Overtoun Jenda
Assistant Provost and Professor of Mathematics
Thanks so much Lynn! I enjoyed watching your video too, and we are looking forward to connecting with you.