We are very pleased to announce that effective July 1, 2020, Professor of Mathematics Chawne Kimber and Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jenn Stroud Rossmann will serve a two-year appointment as the faculty co-directors of the Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM Education and Studies. The mission of the center is to coordinate support of underrepresented students and faculty in STEM, faculty development in inclusive pedagogies for STEM education, and research and curriculum development in STEM studies/STS. The Hanson Center will advance both our practices and our understanding of inclusion and equity in STEM.
Both Professors Rossmann and Kimber have been campus leaders in developing programs and plans for enhancing inclusion, equity, and justice in STEM.
Professor Kimber also serves as department head of mathematics and has participated in national and international institutional efforts to improve the conditions for women and minorities in mathematics. She developed Lafayette’s Summer Program to Advance Leadership in STEM, which for more than 10 years has launched students from marginalized groups into their college careers and beyond. As faculty director of CITLS, she added sustained thematic programming in accessibility and inclusive pedagogy and expanded the New Faculty Orientation program.
Professor Rossmann has served as department head of mechanical engineering and as a leader of the inclusive STEM initiatives associated with the academic planning process. She has developed several courses that contextualize and critique STEM processes and products, particularly in terms of gender, race, and other identities. Her scholarly expertise includes interdisciplinary and inclusive engineering education.
The College is grateful to the Inclusive STEM Task Force/Search Committee for their work and for their unanimous decision to move forward with a two-year faculty director model after the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the College’s hiring freeze. These will be important developmental years for the new center, and the faculty directors will lay important groundwork for the full-time director, a search for whom will begin once the College’s current hiring freeze has thawed.
John Meier, Provost
Jamila Bookwala, Dean of the Faculty