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cefnsdeansoffice@nau.eduSloan MITSI
Sloan Multi-Institutional Transformation and Graduate Student Support Initiative (MITSI)
Northern Arizona University’s MITSI program, developed in collaboration with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, aims to develop a model for systemic change in STEM graduate education through a coordinated effort across three institutions of higher learning in the Southwest: NAU’s Flagstaff campus, NAU–Yuma, and Diné College.
Supporting graduate STEM education for Indigenous and Latine students
The MITSI program supports undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups as they move into STEM master’s degrees at NAU and beyond, and will build networks of faculty mentors who are trained and responsive to the needs of students from historically excluded populations. This exciting program is funded through The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Northern Arizona University, and Genentech. Together, the shared vision of these contributors will lead to systemic change in the capacity to recruit, train, and place students from historically excluded groups into graduate STEM pathways.
Building bridges and transforming lives
MITSI provides opportunities for current undergraduates, graduate students pursuing a STEM master’s degree, and faculty at NAU and across the Southwest. The program is a shared effort among four faculty members at NAU’s Flagstaff campus: Drs. Catherine Propper, Anita Antoninka, Angelina Castagno, and Monica Brown, in collaboration with Dr. Don Robinson from Diné College and Dr. Francisco Villa from NAU–Yuma. The overarching goal is to create long-term, equity-oriented systemic change through a partnership across the three institutions by reducing racial disparities in STEM graduate pathways.
Undergraduate and graduate opportunities
Program features
Family engagement
Families are a key stakeholder for universities, and systemic change toward greater equity must consider the role families can and should play. We propose a bilateral model of family engagement that is designed to both ensure a holistic approach to student support and leverage the expertise of families to inform faculty learning. Family and community bonds are complex and crucial to developing successful student pathways and careers for many Indigenous and Latine students. Transitions to university and graduate programs are often unknown territory and can be a source of stress and adversity for students and their families.
To ensure a positive, culturally responsive community of support for NAU students, we invite parents, relatives, and friends of seniors in the program to partner in their student’s pathway to success. Through in-person and live remote options, we offer a variety of opportunities to facilitate engagement among all parties.
The student support networks will be invited to participate in a workshop to prepare families and participants for graduate school, pathways talks, and the summer symposium. During the symposium, families have the opportunity to meet with faculty mentors to enhance the awareness of the benefits of a graduate education and the degree of commitment necessary for success.
We also draw on the rich assets and funds of knowledge among student support network members by inviting them to co-facilitate learning opportunities for STEM faculty in the community of practice and to participate in roundtable conversations and other events designed to build relationships and knowledge across families.
STEM faculty academy
The NAU STEM faculty academy is for faculty who wish to understand and apply principles of anti-racist and equity-oriented education. The MITSI Community of Practice (CoP) seeks to empower institutional change that will provide knowledge and skills related to anti-racist and equity-oriented education to all NAU faculty to support all students as they move through their academic careers.
Faculty participants will engage in a year-long program to grow their understanding of systemic racism, conscious and unconscious bias, foundational equity principles, and how their own positionality relates to teaching and mentoring students. The CoP will meet monthly and will follow a curriculum developed and facilitated by Drs. Castagno and Brown. The curriculum will focus first on self-reflection and self-examination so that STEM faculty more fully understand their own positionality and role in campus culture and climate.
Next, the curriculum will draw on equity-oriented principles and anti-racist worldview development within the context of higher education. Finally, we will explore the applicability of these ideas to STEM teaching, mentoring, research collaborations, and administration of programs (including admissions processes) so that faculty understand how they can build individual leadership capacity to shift their own practices and become role models for other faculty on how to contribute to institutional change, eliminate structural barriers, and reduce disproportionality and systemic inequities in STEM fields.
Prior scholars and program participants
Ivory Bacy – MS Biology – Advisor: Javier Ceja-Navarro
Amber Born – MS Forestry – Advisor: Anita Antoninka
Kirby Morris – MS Biology – Advisor: Kitty Gehring
Darren Olney – MS Environmental Sciences – Advisor: Helen Rowe
Salix Scoresby – MS Forestry – Co-advisors: Seafha Ramos and Faith Walker
Tracey Begaye – MS Forestry – Advisor: Pete Fulé
Haley Farwell – MS Forestry – Advisor: Salli Dymond
Bianca Gonzalez – MS Forestry – Advisor: Jim Allen
Keven Griffen – PhD Forestry – Co-advisors: Matthew Bowker and Anita Antoninka
Madison Litzenberger – MS Forestry – Advisor: Andrew Sanchez-Meador
Allison Harmon – MS Biology – Advisor Salli Dymond