Page 8 - CEMS News Winter 2023

DEI UPDATE
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Updates from the CEMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Working Group and Students Organizing Against Racism (SOAR).
Graduate Student Recruiting Committee
In order to build relationships with minority-serving institutions, the committee arranged for CEMS faculty members Samira Azarin to visit the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Paul Dauenhauer to visit Prairie View A&M University (Texas), and Kevin Dorfman to visit Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering.
Dauenhauer, for example, gave a seminar and provided an educational session on graduate school including
the process for applying, the sequence of events, and
the careers of PhD graduates. “Prairie View A&M is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) that has a strong chemical engineering undergraduate program. My goal was to educate students on the opportunities available to them to attend graduate school following their undergraduate education,” said Dauenhauer.
Dorfman further reiterated the importance of introducing the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities as an option for graduate school to those who may not have previously considered it. “The pool of talented scientists and engineering students within the United States is very broadly distributed, and the success of CEMS requires that we actively work to recruit the best students from across the country. These seminar visits are a crucial step towards building connections with the faculty at schools where we would like to increase our recruiting efforts, and help those current students envision themselves as CEMS graduate students,” said Dorfman.
Outreach Committee (joint with SOAR)
CEMS graduate students represent a wide range of demographic identities and a commensurately diverse set of paths to STEM. To showcase these paths and give high school students a broader perspective on their potential in STEM, selected CEMS students were interviewed for a series of videos.
Recent alumna Eeshani Godbole (PhD ChE ’22) and current graduate students John Dewey, Mauricio De
CEMS graduate student Kristine Loh is among a few students featured in CEMS STEM stories, a video series that includes research descriptions, selecting CEMS for graduate education, overcoming inequities in STEM, etc. Watch the videos on the CEMS YouTube channel (link below).
Leo, Kristine Loh, and Maya Ramamurthy described
their research, provided advice for high school students, addressed why they chose CEMS for their graduate education, addressed overcoming inequities in STEM, among other topics. Watch the videos on the CEMS YouTube channel: z.umn.edu/grad-stories
The Outreach Committee also worked with high school instructors participating in the Research Experiences for Teachers program (RET) through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). Several teachers at Edison High School in Minneapolis expressed interest in having CEMS graduate students as long-term volunteers in their classrooms. As a result, six CEMS graduate students are in contact with those teachers to begin their volunteer roles in Spring semester 2023.
This new approach will provide more consistent, meaningful interactions between the high school students and CEMS volunteers. In doing so, the hope is that the Edison students will take measures to pursue STEM education/careers and have committed mentors to
guide them on those paths. This one-to-one option also
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