Students from San Diego State University recently visited NIU as part of an exchange program that seeks to expose student groups that are underrepresented in the sciences to research projects, paths to graduate school and a network of supportive peers from other universities.
SDSU and NIU students learn about prairie ecology research from NIU Professor Holly Jones while visiting Nachusa Grasslands.
The three-day late May visit, which also included a trip to the Chicago campus of Northwestern University, was supported by a National Science Foundation grant to NIU Professor Holly Jones and former NIU colleague Nicholas Barber, who’s now at SDSU. In turn, Jones will take a group of NIU students to San Diego next year.
Participants in the recent exchange—including five SDSU students, three NIU students and others from Northwestern—are all pursuing graduate or undergraduate degrees in the areas such as biochemistry, environmental studies, and environmental engineering. The SDSU and Northwestern students also are chapter members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in STEM (SACNAS).
“NIU’s chapter went dormant, so part of the impetus for this exchange was for NIU students to learn more about what it takes to run a SACNAS chapter in hopes of revitalizing ours,” said Jones, who holds a joint appointment at NIU in biological sciences and environmental studies.
“More broadly, we want to create opportunities for students to talk to each other, especially encouraging conversations about careers and graduate school—what are the benefits, what’s it like, how to write a competitive application. Many of these students are the first in their families to go to college, so navigating academia is itself a learning experience. It helps to know other students on the same path and see people like yourself succeeding.”
Students visited Jones’ flowering prairie project on the western edge of NIU’s campus, the expansive restoration project at Nachusa Grasslands (complete with baby bison) and state-of-the-art biomedical facilities at Northwestern. They also picnicked, hiked, met in discussion groups and visited two Chicago landmarks famous for their beans—the four-story Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Millennium Park, with its iconic Bean (Cloud Gate) sculpture.
In 2020, NSF had awarded Jones and Barber $703,000 over four years to study prairie restoration on campus. The experiment site is located on more than a half-acre north of the NIU Convocation Center—property that will be part of the Northern Illinois Center for Community Sustainability. The NSF grant also provided funding for activities that encourage underrepresented students to pursue careers in the sciences.
According to the 2020 NSF Science & Engineering Indicators, members of underrepresented minorities represented about 15% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce and more than 28 percent of the adult U.S. population. NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan has said addressing the “missing millions”—people who are capable of succeeding as scientists and engineers but do not have access to pathways that lead into those careers—is a key step toward enabling the American STEM enterprise to thrive in the coming decades.
A San Diego native, Regina Mae Francia is now pursuing her Ph.D. in ecology from NIU. She jumped at the chance to volunteer to be part of the exchange and meet fellow San Diegans. Francia said the exchange provided a unique experience for students to share their passion for research and their experiences with diversity and inclusion.
“This program brings science and culture together with students who are on similar academic or career paths,” Francia added. “And this really helps us not feel alone, that there are other people from similar backgrounds and experiences that also fell in love with science and decided to pursue it.”
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June 14, 2022 at 08:32PM
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Thanks to NSF, NIU hosts exchange with San Diego State University - NIU Today
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