IUSE Southwest Regional Meeting Brings Southwest Educators Together
By Drew Milne
On March 13th and 14th, 2025, participants in the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative (NSF IUSE) throughout the Southwest came together in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Participants shared updates, learned from each other’s successes, and planned ahead for the future. With support from NSF IUSE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science provides the opportunity for IUSE programs to share evidence-based practices and establish collaborations. NSF IUSE provides grants to universities to implement innovative ways to make undergraduate STEM education effective and accessible.
The University of Arizona’s IUSE grant is called the IDEAS in Mind project. IDEAS in Mind is a program dedicated to preparing undergraduate engineering students on the Autism spectrum for internships at prominent companies. The U of A was represented at the meeting by the Sonoran Center’s Drew Milne and by Roshan Price of the College of Engineering ENGAGED program, which helps facilitate IDEAS in Mind.
The conference had a variety of activities, including lectures, seminars, town-hall style conversations, and collaborative brainstorming sessions. The conference opened with an introduction by Layne Scherer Kyung, program director for AAAS, and Travis York, AAAS’ director of Inclusive STEMM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity. They explained the many avenues that STEM programs have for improving STEM education, including teaching methods, technology, accessibility, cultural responsiveness, and engaging families outside of the classroom.
Next, the meeting convened to review the 2024 National Academies report “Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education”. Report chair Dr. Archie Holmes and Study Director Dr. Kerry Brenner led the session. The report outlined seven principles, including flexibility and responsiveness to situational and contextual factors to support student learning; and intentionality and transparency to create more equitable opportunities, among others. Drs. Holmes and Kerry continued by outlining ways that participants could implement these principles in their own institutions.
Later that afternoon, Dr. Susan Elrod led a session on Change Leadership for Advancing Systemic Change. The following day of the conference began with “Lightning Talk” presentations, short updates on the committee members’ individual grants. This was followed by a “town hall” style meeting on navigating student support in the current higher educational environment.
The final session of the conference was titled “Vision and Change”. Led by Dr. Stanley Lo, the session focused on the report Vision & Change, which outlined cutting-edge approaches to undergraduate biology education. Lo facilitated discussions amongst participants on how the report’s guidelines, like evidence-based, student centered-approaches, could be applied to other disciplines of STEM and beyond.
The meeting was an opportunity to connect and share strategies for the future of education throughout the Southwest and beyond. The Sonoran Center is proud to have been a participant in this great exchange of knowledge, resources, and support.