Leaders for Inclusive Learning: Fostering an Equity-Focused Faculty

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a large urban, public research university with a high proportion of underrepresented (UR) students, where student success and diversity are drivers of excellence. Yet, course outcomes data in our College of Humanities and Sciences show minoritized students experience inequities compared with their majority peers. The pandemic exacerbated these disparities, particularly in STEM classrooms, creating an urgent need for interventions to reduce and subsequently eliminate these inequities. Designed in collaboration with the VCU Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence and the VCU HHMI IE program, the Leaders for Inclusive Learning was a yearlong program aimed to create a cohort of inclusive teaching experts who will lead significant equity-focused change in the culture of teaching and learning at VCU. This innovative leadership program has already begun to garner impressive results and could be readily replicated by other institutions that are ready to address inequities in STEM education.