NSF INCLUDES DDLP: WiSEN - Supporting Minoritized Women Students in STEM, Cultivating Pathways Using Mentoring Networks

The Women in STEM Education Network (WiSEN) is a co-mentoring network for historically underrepresented and marginalized graduate and undergraduate women students in STEM. This INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project engages students in structured conversations, identifies mentoring needs, and explores the systemic barriers that hinder women’s participation in STEM. The project goal is to expand upon best practices in STEM mentoring, while building a national networked community for minoritized women students. The initial phase of the project is design, development, and launch of the WiSEN project among four higher education institutions- Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Montana, Washington State University, and Gonzaga University. The WiSEN project functions as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC). NIC models have demonstrated effectiveness when researchers, students, and institutional leaders collaborate to develop solutions for institutional and systemic change. This NIC model provides the basis for the WiSEN co-mentoring infrastructure, which operates in virtual and in-person hybrid spaces. WiSEN participants engage in critical and courageous dialogue centering on: 1) Understanding Institutional Power and Navigating Systemic Barriers; 2) Leveraging Cultural Wealth and Intersectional Identities; 3) Networking for Systemic Change; and 4) Co-mentoring Future Leaders. Research insights fill important knowledge gaps regarding best practices for mentoring women and provide a platform for this scalable network that can be implemented beyond the initial four university partners. This project is funded by NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) Initiative, which seeks to motivate and accelerate collaborative infrastructure building to advance and sustain systemic change to broaden participation in STEM at scale. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.