Reflections of Anxiety Narratives

This narrative discusses a research study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to illustrate the connections between writing and healing. College students who answered survey questions about their health reported anxiety as a concern. Writing in journals became a method of coping with anxiety, which led the research to evolve into a social action project of managing stress and eliminating the stigma surrounding anxiety. Resources to help anxiety include exercise, nutrition, and belonging to a supportive community.

Exploring the Core Features of UTeach Maker

UTeach Maker is a collaborative micro-credentialing program that supports preservice and practicing STEM teachers in developing the knowledge, skills, and professional networks needed to bring maker-centered learning opportunities to secondary STEM learning environments. This chapter describes the UTeach Maker program and unpacks four core features including (1) collaboration with field leaders to develop an open portfolio, (2) collaboration with peers and mentors to develop a supportive community, (3) collaboration with technical experts to promote skill building, and (4) collaboration with participants to develop a personalized experience. The chapter also highlights unique aspects of the program and explains how the UTeach Maker model can be adapted to support micro-credentialing initiatives in other contexts.

Swiss Women in Chemistry – Two Years Later ...

The SCS Swiss Women in Chemistry network was launched in September 2019. Under the umbrella of the Swiss Chemical Society, its aim is to create visibility, facilitate networking and provide a supportive community for female chemists in Switzerland across all career stages both in industry and academia. The current article provides an overview on the platform's activities over the past two years.

Radical re-imagination: centering a BIPOC library workforce in an asset-based autoethnography

PurposeAcademic BIPOC librarians oftentime struggle to envision themselves and navigate in White-dominant spaces due to deficit thinking. To better understand how DEIA efforts can bolster structural change in academic libraries, the two BIPOC authors opted to lean on an asset-based exercise–imagining a positive work environment made possible through a library staffed entirely by BIPOC individuals.Design/methodology/approachThrough collaborative autoethnography, the two authors interviewed one another and centered their unstructured conversations around one question: “What does an academic library composed entirely of a BIPOC workforce look like?” Three emergent themes were agreed upon and finalized by the two authors.FindingsThe authors' imagined library is able to foster a supportive community and also function efficiently thanks to its shared purpose grounded in DEIA. Despite relying on an asset-based framework, the authors found themselves having to reckon with trials and tribulations currently faced by BIPOC librarians. Effectively envisioning the “ideal” library environment is not possible without also engaging with librarianship's legacy of racial injustices.Originality/valueRecognizing that confronting systems of oppression naturally invokes trauma, this paper encourages librarians to challenge deficit thinking and instead rely on asset-based models to candidly imagine an anti-racist academic library. The authors acknowledge that BIPOC voices and experiences add tremendous value to the library workplace. At the heart of this paper is the belief that reparations for past racial injustices should not only fix past wrongdoings, but also contribute to positive workplace cultures.

Community-based workers’ capacity to develop inclusive livelihoods for youth with disabilities in Botswana

Background: Youth with disabilities encounter multiple barriers to livelihood opportunities and socio-economic inclusion. Research focusing on identifying and evaluating evidence-based strategies that may facilitate their transition into socio-economic participation is limited.Objectives: The study undertook to contribute knowledge and evidence to inform inclusive socio-economic development of youth with disabilities and capacitation of community-based workers engaged in implementing the livelihood component of community-based rehabilitation programmes advocating for inclusive development.Method: This qualitative exploratory case study used the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children Youth Version to analyse community-based workers’ knowledge and experience of the rural and peri-urban communities in which they worked in Botswana. It further analysed their activities, strategies and recommendations in response to environmental factors impacting the livelihood opportunities of youth with disabilities. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, following a life history and phenomenological approach. Data were analysed inductively using thematic content analysis.Results: Community-based workers showed sufficient knowledge and experience of barriers and enablers in health, education and training, social development, employment and governance that facilitated or obstructed access to livelihood opportunities for youth with disability. Identifying more barriers than enablers, community-based workers adopted innovative strategies to sustain and strengthen their practices and activities in the livelihoods domain. They contributed recommendations, mainly aimed at government.Conclusion: Community-based workers have the capacity to provide valuable evidence and design strategy to facilitate the socio-economic inclusion of youth with disabilities. They are particularly adept at intervening at local levels but do not have sufficient confidence or capacity to mobilise supportive community structures or to exert influence at the level of policy formulation, decision-making and implementation.

Synergistic Interaction of LSAMP Alliances to Improve the Graduation and Transfer of Community College Students in New Jersey United States

The Garden State-LSAMP (GSLSAMP) alliance works collaboratively with the Northern New Jersey-Bridges to the Baccalaureate (NNJB2B) to greatly improve the graduation of community college students from underrepresented minority (URM) groups in STEM and their transfer rate to 4-years STEM programs. This is accomplished through several areas of enrichment. The two alliances sponsor joint activities to encourage a supportive community of 2-years and 4-years students. Community college students conduct research in the labs of mentoring faculty at 4-years programs where they interact with 4-years college students. A cross-campus near-peer mentoring program pairs recently transferred GSLSAMP mentors with mentees from the mentor’s community college of origin that eases and facilitates the graduation and transfer of mentees. In addition, the NNJB2B has adopted five proven high impact practices from GSLSAMP for their students. The results are that the graduation rate of the NNJB2B increased an average of 24.0% annually over the first 5 years of the program and the transfer rate improved 151.0% over the 2012 baseline. Four GSLSAMP 4-years institutions were especially active in the program and experienced an average increase of 62.9% over the 2012 baseline transfers from NNJB2B community colleges.

The power of peer networking for improving STEM faculty job applications: a successful pilot program

In order to successfully obtain a faculty position, postdoctoral fellows or postdocs, must submit an application which requires considerable time and effort to produce. These job applications are often reviewed by mentors and colleagues, but rarely are postdocs offered the opportunity to solicit feedback multiple times from reviewers with the same breadth of expertise often found on an academic search committee. To address this gap, this manuscript describes an international peer reviewing program for small groups of postdocs with a broad range of expertise to reciprocally and iteratively provide feedback to each other on their application materials. Over 145 postdocs have participated, often multiple times, over three years. A survey of participants in this program revealed that nearly all participants would recommend participation in such a program to other faculty applicants. Furthermore, this program was more likely to attract participants who struggled to find mentoring and support elsewhere, either because they changed fields or because of their identity as a woman or member of an underrepresented population in STEM. Participation in programs like this one could provide early career academics like postdocs with a diverse and supportive community of peer mentors during the difficult search for a faculty position. Such psychosocial support and encouragement has been shown to prevent attrition of individuals from these populations and programs like this one target the largest leak in the pipeline, that of postdoc to faculty. Implementation of similar peer-reviewing programs by universities or professional scientific societies could provide a valuable mechanism of support and increased chances of success for early-career academics in their search for independence.

Access to Mental Health Supports and Services: Perspectives of Young Women Living in Rural Nova Scotia (Canada)

There is limited literature on youths’ experiences of accessing mental health supports and services in rural Canada. Through interviews with young women, this research explored barriers and facilitators to accessing mental health services and supports in rural Nova Scotia. Participants shared numerous barriers at the family, school, and community levels, including stigma from family, lack of knowledge of school supports, and limited community service options. Facilitators also existed at these three levels, including supportive parents, school-based service availability, and supportive community members. Increased investment in school-based services may improve access; however, an understanding of young men’s experiences is needed first.

The Dragonfly Effect: Analysis of the Social Media Women’s Empowerment Campaign

Social media can advocate for social causes and catalyse audience support. To better understand the role of social media in advocacy communication, this article explores how advocates utilised Facebook to advocate for the ‘Taa Marbuta’ women empowerment campaign in Egypt. Our research draws on the dragonfly effect model and muted group theory as theoretical and analytical frameworks. In-depth interviews are conducted with advocates from all campaign partners who were directly involved in planning and managing the campaign. Following the dragonfly effect model, findings show that the campaign has a clear goal and uses various message strategies and pop culture for grabbing audience attention and generating audience engagement; however, there is no clear call for action. Thematic analysis also reveals two emerging themes: customisation of women empowerment communication and a supportive community of women empowerment that can stimulate societal debates necessary for social change. This study contends that including men can mitigate the muted effect on women in a male-dominant society and paves the way towards women’s empowerment. Overall, this study shows how social media helps make the ‘Taa Marbuta’ campaign an icon of women empowerment.