Accelerating change: The power of faculty change agents to promote diversity and inclusive teaching practices

Abstract

Faculty play an important role in attracting students to the geosciences, helping them to thrive in geoscience programs, and preparing them for careers. Thus, faculty have the responsibility to work toward broadening participation in the geosciences by implementing equitable and inclusive practices in their teaching and their programs. Faculty professional development that promotes diversity and inclusion is one way to move evidence-based practices into wider use. The adoption of these practices may be accelerated through a professional development diffusion model that amplifies the impacts through the work of faculty change agents. An example of this approach is the SAGE 2YC professional development program, in which faculty change agents learn and practice strategies during workshop sessions, implement changes in their own teaching, and then work in teams to lead workshops in their region under the auspices of the national program. Although this example focuses on two-year colleges, the model is applicable to faculty professional development more broadly. The success of the model is due in large part to a suite of leader-developed workshop sessions and curated resources that change agent teams may select and adapt for the regional workshops they lead. Furthermore, change agents are trusted colleagues, which makes adoption of the evidence-based practices by regional workshop participants more likely. Increased adoption of a change agent approach to faculty development will support the creation and sharing of additional resources, leading to wider diffusion and implementation of inclusive teaching practices.

Keywords:

• Faculty professional development
• diversity
• inclusive pedagogy
• change agents
• community colleges

Introduction

The geosciences constitute the least diverse STEM field (Huntoon, Tanenbaum, & Hodges, 2015; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2017). Although many efforts have been made to broaden participation in the geosciences (e.g., Riggs & Alexander, 2007; Wolfe & Riggs, 2017) and some recent gains at the undergraduate level have been reported (Wilson, 2016), ethnic and racial diversity remain low in geoscience degrees at all levels (Bernard & Cooperdock, 2018; Riggs, Callahan, & Brey, 2018; Sidder, 2017). Likewise, although women make up more than half of the undergraduate student population, they earn fewer than half of the undergraduate degrees in STEM disciplines (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2017) and comprise only 23% of the geoscience workforce (Sidder, 2017). To broaden participation in the geosciences, faculty must implement equitable and inclusive practices. Through their teaching and actions, faculty can attract students to the discipline, support them through critical transitions, help them persist through graduation, and prepare them for successful careers (Komives & Woodard, 2001; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006; Newman, 2011; Strayhorn, 2012; Tsui, 2007; Wang, 2013). However, according to the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey, fewer than half of the geoscience faculty respondents reported either communicating with colleagues about how to support diversity or using many of the teaching practices that support diversity (Beane, McNeal, & Macdonald, in press). One way to promote faculty talking about diversity and sharing inclusive practices is through professional development programs. In this commentary, we introduce a new, ongoing professional development program that facilitates faculty learning about and communicating with one another about issues of access, diversity, and equity, and promotes faculty adoption of inclusive practices in geoscience courses and programs.

A challenge for professional development is how to move evidence-based practices into widespread use (e.g., D’Avanzo, 2013; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017; Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011; Manduca, 2017). We advocate using a professional development diffusion model, via the change agent approach, to promote and accelerate the adoption of practices that foster diversity and inclusion (e.g., Callahan et al., 2017; Wolfe & Riggs, 2017).

Our program focuses on two-year college geoscience faculty, a critical group, given that two-year colleges enroll 44% of the undergraduate students attending public institutions of higher education in the United States (Community College Research Center, 2019). The student population at public community colleges is 56% female, 50% students of color, 38% first-generation students, and 44% low-income students (Community College Research Center, 2019; National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). Two-year colleges are key entry points toward a baccalaureate degree, and strong connections between four-year institutions and two-year colleges have been shown to provide important access to the baccalaureate for students from historically marginalized groups (e.g., Houser, Nunez, & Miller, 2018). In particular, Malcolm (2010, p. 32) noted, “Sixty-one percent of Latina/o STEM bachelor’s degree holders” had taken courses at two-year colleges.

The change agent model we describe is applicable to faculty professional development programs across all types of institutions and has high potential for broadening participation in the geosciences. In this commentary, we share the implementation of the approach, its theoretical context, examples of professional development activities and resources, and some promising initial results. In addition, we convey our insights into what makes the change agent model effective and our recommendations for further diffusion of practices and related future research.

Sage 2YC Faculty as Change Agents project

The Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education in Two-Year Colleges (SAGE 2YC) program, through the NSF-funded Faculty as Change Agents: Transforming Geoscience Education in Two-Year Colleges project, aims to build the capacity for faculty change agents from two-year colleges to implement evidence-based practices for three project strands: (a) supporting the success of all students, (b) broadening participation, and (c) facilitating students’ professional pathways in geoscience and STEM via careers and transfer to four-year institutions (Eddy, Hao, Markiewicz, & Iverson, 2018). The faculty change agents receive a stipend for their participation in the project. They engage in professional development activities throughout the year and, in teams of two or three, work for change in their courses, their geoscience programs, and their regions. They also analyze course-level outcomes data from their geoscience program, partner with an institutional administrator to review their program action plan, and lead an annual regional workshop for other geoscience faculty. Cohort 1 change agents joined upon invitation and participated for four years; Cohort 2 agents were selected through an application process and participated for two years. The first cohort participated in in-person and virtual professional development activities, whereas the second participated in different, primarily virtual, activities. The SAGE 2YC Faculty as Change Agents project is currently in progress, and a full evaluation will come later.

In this commentary, we focus on the first SAGE 2YC cohort (23 faculty participating for four years in 11 regional teams) and their efforts toward broadening participation in the geosciences. Faculty in the first cohort participated in a two-day workshop in spring 2016 and intensive three-day summer workshops in 2016, 2017, and 2018 to learn instructional practices and workshop design strategies, develop and revise action plans, discuss course-level outcomes data, and report on their progress. In addition to these in-person workshops, they participated in a series of virtual activities each fall and spring. The faculty participants implemented changes in their courses and program, each working as “an active agent who learns over time and is responsible for making changes” in the frame presented by Manduca (2017, p. 416). Each year, faculty teams designed and led a one-day workshop in their region, moving the change agents from apprentices to masters (Eddy et al., 2018). Through these regional workshops, practices related to the three project strands were rapidly disseminated nationally, accelerating and amplifying the effect of the original workshops (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A. Change agents explore diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies, represented by different shapes, at initial workshops. B. They implement some of those strategies in their teaching and programs based on advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability (Rogers, 2010). C. Using some of the resources provided at the initial workshop, combined with first-hand experience, change agents lead regional workshops, diffusing strategies to more faculty beyond immediate participants at initial workshops.

Theoretical framework

The framework for how the change agents share strategies with colleagues is based on adult learning theory (Knowles, 1984) and diffusion of innovation theory (Rogers, 2010). Adult learning theory recognizes that because adults are largely self-directed learners, they benefit from recognizing how their new learning helps address the immediate issues they face. Adults also draw on their life experiences as a way to situate their understanding of new concepts (Merriam, 2001; Merriam & Bierema, 2013). Rogers (2010, p. 5) defined diffusion as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.” In the SAGE 2YC project, the innovation centers around supporting the success of all students, implementing inclusive teaching and programmatic practices, and facilitating students’ career pathways, which are communicated within the change agents’ community of practice (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015). According to the Rogers (2010) model, the rate of adoption of innovations is based on (a) the relative advantage individuals perceive to adopting the new ideas, (b) the compatibility of the innovation with existing values and culture, (c) the complexity of the adoption, (d) the trialability that allows for adapting an innovation in one class period before revising an entire course, and (e) the observability for which a faculty member might recognize changes in students’ success that result from adoption of new teaching practices.

Unlike a “train-the-trainer” approach that focuses on replication of a specific set of best practices, embedding the Rogers’s (2010) principles into the SAGE 2YC professional development allows change agents to adopt and adapt approaches that resonate with their context, needs, and teaching style. The train-the-trainer approach is widely used in public health, where fidelity to the training is essential in dissemination, such as in HIV prevention or tobacco-cessation education (Corelli et al., 2007; Hiner et al., 2009). In this approach, prescribed pedagogies and training materials lead to the uptake of specific knowledge and changes in practice, and fidelity to the replication is critical for success (Pearce et al., 2012; Pfund et al., 2015; Yarber et al., 2015). In contrast, Guskey and Yoon (2009, p. 497) found that effective teacher professional development programs promote “careful adaptation” of practices by teachers to “specific context, process, and content,” following recommendations of the National Staff Development Council (2001).

The SAGE 2YC program promotes adaptation in two ways: (a) SAGE 2YC encourages adaptation of both materials and facilitation strategies to the needs of their situation and (b) SAGE 2YC envisions leadership development as an equally important outcome of workshop facilitation. Using Rogers’s (2010) diffusion model as a theoretical framework allowed the project to examine the adaptation in each region and to investigate how the act of facilitation develops the change agents’ leadership capacity. We hypothesize that the change agents are able to motivate their regional colleagues, in part, because they share similar professional circumstances, such as teaching at two-year colleges and working with similar student populations. Furthermore, the change agents are regarded as credible and competent sources because they have been selected for the program and have implemented some of these practices in their own courses.

The development of change agents as leaders, in both capacity and attitude, is an important component of the program that allows the wide dissemination of ideas and practices. In interviews conducted by the SAGE 2YC research and evaluation team, change agents have remarked that they have developed a capacity to lead their colleagues from the work of facilitating the regional workshops. For example, for one change agent, the leadership opportunities this program afforded helped her to move beyond the “imposter syndrome” feelings (Hutchins & Rainbolt, 2017) she had. Another reported that, although he was initially uncomfortable with the idea of facilitating workshops, participating in the program changed his perspective. A third described a leadership attitude related to her work as a change agent: “From the SAGE program, I feel like I’m a leader in disseminating information about active learning, and what can be done in classrooms.”

Workshops and resources for change agents

We offered four intensive, multiday workshops for the Cohort 1 change agents: two in 2016, one in 2017, and one in 2018. These initial workshops included professional development on instructional practices related to the three project strands and on workshop design strategies as well as opportunities for action planning and other activities. Four sessions that address aspects of diversity and inclusion were intentionally designed for these initial workshops, such that the sessions could be adopted or adapted by the change agents for the regional workshops they would lead. In addition, presentations, posters, and handouts from these sessions were curated on the project website to facilitate their use by the change agents.

These four sessions enhanced the change agents’ ability to implement inclusive practices in their courses and programs, and provided scaffolding for leading similar sessions in their regional workshops. Each session is interactive, builds from the research base, emphasizes practical applications and strategies, enables participants to share their knowledge and experience, and includes time for reflection and action planning. Best practices for adult learners (Merriam, 2001; Merriam & Bierema, 2013) were employed to provide the change agents opportunities to connect their new learning to their teaching practice and to engage in activities relevant to their work as geoscience faculty in two-year colleges. We further supported the change agents with sessions on leadership and organizational change followed by postworkshop virtual discussions about planning their regional workshop programs and sessions. All change agents have access to resources that outline effective workshop and session design, a timeline for workshop planning and advertising, a checklist for their workshop website, and postworkshop reflection questions. Some also participated in virtual activities offered during the academic year that built on these sessions addressing aspects of diversity and inclusion.

The four workshop sessions and associated materials are described below; the workshop materials are available on the SAGE 2YC project website at https://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/workshop_materials.html.

Sense of belonging session

Students who belong to groups that are traditionally underrepresented are disproportionately susceptible to belonging uncertainty, which can inhibit academic achievement (Aguilar et al., 2014; Walton & Cohen, 2007). To familiarize faculty with ways to foster a sense of belonging and normalize academic transitions, we developed a scaffolded session that consisted of a summary of key research findings, a think-pair-share (Lyman, 1987) discussion of a well-intentioned but poorly-executed intervention, and a jigsaw exploration (participants gain expertise in one aspect, then peer-teach and work cooperatively to complete a task) of excerpts from the research literature on noncognitive interventions shown to have a positive impact on academic achievement (Yeager & Walton, 2011). The excerpts address the following interventions: normalizing academic struggle in the transition to college (Wilson & Linville, 1982, 1985), values affirmation (Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009; Miyake et al., 2010), social belonging (Walton & Cohen, 2007, 2011), and critical feedback with assurance (Cohen & Steele, 2002; Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013). The excerpts include the research citation, a synopsis of the study design and results, and a key graph if available. For this session, change agents described how belonging uncertainty undermines student academic success, discussed key strategies for fostering students’ sense of belonging, and developed plans to implement one or more inclusive strategies in their courses.

Building students’ science identity through scientist spotlights session

Change agents discussed ways to infuse career information into geoscience courses and programs following a presentation highlighting the lack of diversity in the geosciences and describing the key elements of building a science identity. The discussions took place via a gallery walk in which participants in small groups viewed various posters in turn, responding to prompt questions and previous responses. An important outcome of this session was a focus on ways that faculty can help students identify as scientists. The development of a science identity influences students’ persistence in STEM fields (Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Rodriguez et al., 2017) and may encourage students to continue along a geoscience career path. As discussed in this session, “scientist spotlights” (Schinske, Perkins, Snyder, & Wyer, 2016) are one way to provide students with examples of geoscientists to whom students might personally relate, and to shift students’ stereotypes of scientists. The use of spotlights and other representations help students develop a science identify and shift student stereotypes of scientists (Schinske et al., 2016; Stout, Dasgupta, Hunsinger, & McManus, 2011). Interest in using the spotlights was high, and SAGE 2YC has subsequently developed 20 geoscientist spotlights. Each spotlight includes the scientist’s interests and work, and links to videos, websites, or papers. Building students’ science identify and scientist spotlights are also addressed in two of the posters used in the diversity and inclusion session.

These spotlights may be an important contribution to the larger geoscience community that would enable more faculty to spotlight geoscientists and diversity. Of the faculty respondents to the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey who indicated that they included photos and stories of individuals in their course, 82% reported that fewer than 10% of the geoscientists included in photos and stories in their course are people of color (Beane et al., in press). Increasing the use of spotlights helps students in courses develop a science identity and shift their stereotypes of scientists (Schinske, et al., 2016).

Supporting student success in your teaching session

This session considered how to design and teach courses in ways that support student success (e.g., Freeman et al., 2014; Lombardi, Murray, & Gerdes, 2011; McGuire, 2015; National Research Council, 2000). It began with discussions of scenarios of students as learners, introduced a goals-focused approach to course design (Tewksbury and Macdonald, 2007; Wiggins, Wiggins, & McTighe, 2005), and included a jigsaw on active learning strategies using a set of posters originally developed for the NAGT On the Cutting Edge Early Career Geoscience Faculty Workshops (Beane, 2019). These posters provide descriptions of evidence-based strategies, implementation instructions, geoscience examples, and relevant references for the following strategies: Collaborative Documents (employing online collaboration tools), ConcepTests (multiple-choice question focused on one concept of the lesson), Cooperative Exams (two-stage exams for which some questions are answered individually and others cooperatively), Gallery Walks (students respond to prompts and each others' comments), Jigsaw (students gain expertise in one aspect, then peer-teach and work cooperatively to complete a task), minute papers (short written responses), Think-Pair-Share (students think about response to a question, discuss with partner, then share with the class), Worksheets (in-class assignments, aka lecture tutorials), and Wrappers (self-monitoring activities surrounding an assignment). Active learning strategies such as these are effective toward broadening participation because they encourage the participation of all students, “not just those who are already engaged” (Tanner, 2013, p. 322); they reduce the achievement gaps seen between subpopulations of students (e.g., Haak et al., 2011; Roberts et al., 2018); and they create environments in which more students are comfortable enough to take risks in their learning (Johnson, 2007).

For the SAGE 2YC strategies for active learning session, the posters were displayed around the room and used in a jigsaw exercise, for which the final cooperative task was to design three activities, each employing a different strategy that would help students interpret graphs. As noted by participant comments, the posters were effective at promoting adoption of active learning strategies, because they clearly communicated how to implement the strategies and provided specific geoscience examples relevant to the courses participants teach. One participant posted copies on the walls of her office as a reminder of the choices available when designing classroom activities.

Strategies for fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion

In this three-hour session, case studies and data on diversity trends in the geosciences and within change agents’ programs were used to probe issues of equity, access, and inclusion in the classroom. We developed 10 posters for this session based on evidence-based strategies: Building a Science Identity (Rodriguez et al., 2017), Develop an Inclusive Community (e.g., Alber, 2013), In-Class Participation of All Students (Tanner, 2013), Make Implicit Rules Visible to All Students (e.g., Winkelmes et al., 2016), Making Course Content Societally Relevant (Pelch & McConnell, 2017), Mitigate Stereotype Threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995), Quick Around (e.g., Feldman & Denti, 2004), Recognize Implicit Biases (e.g., Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), Scientist Spotlights (Schinske, et al., 2016), and Student Engagement Practices (Hurtado & Carter, 1997). Each provides an overview of the topic, strategies for action, and key references. Posters were used in a gallery walk format; then participants discussed possible applications of each strategy, reflected on ways to adopt or adapt the strategies for their own teaching, and received feedback on their plans.

Regional workshops

Since 2016, Cohort 1 change agent teams have annually designed and led one-day workshops in their regions, which range from a single metropolitan area to an entire state. As of early January 2019, the 11 teams have led 26 workshops, reaching 361 participants from 125 different institutions. Of the participants who indicated their position, 75% are faculty from two-year colleges, 66% were full-time, and 34% were adjunct. Other participants include noninstructional faculty (including counselors), faculty from four-year institutions, high school faculty, and students from two-year colleges. Regional workshop participants receive no compensation.

With project support, the teams design their regional workshop based on their specific goals combined with components of the three project strands. Fidelity to a specific training course is not the goal; rather, each of the regional workshops is different based on decisions the leaders make in the context of their institutions and regions. For example, for the broadening participation strand, change agents have led regional workshop sessions that drew from one or more of the four workshop sessions described above, and have designed additional sessions on associated topics (e.g., using culturally responsive and multicontextual approaches; see Chávez & Longerbeam, 2016; Ibarra, 1999). Diversity and inclusion components in regional workshops are often an hour to 90 minutes; in one case, diversity and inclusion was the focus of the one-day regional workshop. Collectively, change agents have incorporated into the regional workshops materials from each of the four sessions, commonly employing a similar structure (e.g., gallery walk, jigsaw) as was used in the initial workshop. The regional workshops offered by the change agent teams help disseminate strategies beyond those who attend the initial workshops (Figure 1).

Workshop results

Here we present results based on end-of-workshop surveys from the initial workshops for change agents and the regional workshops led by change agents. The responses to the surveys are kept confidential; the workshop conveners do not see names of survey respondents. These results, combined with the description of the regional workshops above, illustrate the power of the model for dissemination. A full evaluation of the workshop and project is beyond the scope of this commentary and will be presented in a later report.

The four workshops offered for the first cohort of change agents (two in 2016, one in 2017, and one in 2018) were well received. The unweighted mean of the change agent responses on the online end-of-workshop evaluation to the question, “Please indicate your satisfaction with this workshop,” for the four workshops is 9.3 on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied). The evaluations addressed the workshop as a whole, not the specific diversity and inclusion sessions. Participants were asked to provide feedback on the most and least valuable aspects of the workshop, and to reflect on the top things they planned to implement. One participant who found the poster session on diversity the least valuable session in a workshop noted, “I didn't feel comfortable/able to lead any of the sessions, or I just wasn’t in the brain space to think about these topics as ones that I might want to lead; rather, there were topics that I wanted to learn more about.” However, most other feedback illustrates the value of the diversity and inclusion sessions and the adaptability for their teaching, their programs, and for leading their regional workshops:

The big takeaway was developing an approach to broadening participation that I believe will relate well to my situation.

This gives me more confidence to encourage other faculty at my institution to try new teaching methods that are more student-focused.

I benefited from the diversity session and appreciate the work those leaders did to showcase how a diversity topic could be approached in a workshop.

The regional workshops led by change agent teams have been well received by participants. The mean of the responses to the question, “Please indicate your satisfaction with this workshop,” for the 279 responses (361 participants) from 25 of the 26 regional workshops is 9.1 on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied). From workshops that included sessions focusing on diversity and inclusion, we share the following responses from end-of-workshop evaluations:

Understanding where students drop out of the STEM/Geoscience pipeline is fundamental to the community college mission. We discussed multiple reasons why this occurs, often relating to the stereotype threat. Perhaps most valuable, though, was the discussion of solutions.

Gallery walk exercise [with the diversity and inclusion posters] was particularly useful as a format for exchange of ideas.

Looking forward to adding class interactions that are more inclusive. I want to encourage the Geology instructors at [school] to consider these methods as well.

These end-of-workshop responses are promising. Additional research is needed to investigate the impact of the workshops on the changes participants make in their work, the connections fostered between participants, and the preparation of change agents for other leadership opportunities. As one administrator noted in an interview with a member of the research and evaluation team, the regional workshops foster interactions between full-time and adjunct instructors as well as between faculty members from different departments and from different institutions in ways that continue beyond the workshop. In addition, the regional workshops provide change agents an opportunity to practice their leadership skills as they work in teams to organize the sessions, to plan the program, and to lead the workshop.

Recommendations

In her commentary on faculty professional development, Manduca (2017, p. 416) called for “both new design considerations and new research questions that focus on increasing faculty skill in learning about teaching and applying the results, as well as improving the impact of professional development beyond the immediate participants.” In this commentary, we offer recommendations on the design of faculty professional development programs and associated research questions, and we call for widespread sharing of workshop materials and resources related to access, inclusion, and equity in geoscience courses and programs.

We recommend that a diffusion model be considered in the design of future faculty professional development programs. Following from Manduca’s recommendations in her commentary, our change agent model is one that has the potential both to increase faculty skills by having the immediate participants lead professional development activities following changes they have made in their own practice, and to “improve the impact … beyond the immediate participants” through the workshops change agents lead for others in their region. We suggest that empowering faculty as change agents in the context of the diffusion of innovation model is an effective way to accelerate the effects of professional development.

We recommend that future professional development research focus on the impact of the disseminated workshops, what changes participants in these workshops make in their instructional practices and programs, and what motivates participants to change. The research questions might explore the influence of contextual factors, such as having change agents from the same type of institutional setting, and having change agents work in teams (e.g., D’Avanzo, 2013). In addition, future research might investigate how professional development sessions may be designed to “ensure maximum efficiency to support teacher change” (Glackin, 2019, p. 372) by considering the components of sessions at the initial workshops that are most likely to be used by change agents in designing the workshops they lead, and investigating what makes workshop resources attractive for reuse.

We recommend that professional development programs create, and make widely available, resources that can be readily adopted or adapted, such as workshop materials and session structures. For example, the SAGE 2YC workshop adopted the active learning strategy posters that had been developed for another faculty development program (Beane, 2019), and SAGE 2YC workshop resources on diversity and inclusion have been used by the NAGT-sponsored Traveling Workshops Program. The curated resources and workshop materials developed by SAGE 2YC are publicly available for consideration and adoption or adaptation by individual faculty, by departments, and by facilitators of faculty development workshops and programs.

We recommend that faculty professional development programs include a focus on broadening participation through attention to issues of access, diversity, and inclusion. As a discipline, we need to accelerate change. Addressing these topics in faculty professional development across the community, using resources developed by SAGE 2YC and other programs, is one way to do so.

Conclusions

Faculty change agents leading regional workshops is an important step toward promoting diversity and incorporating inclusive practices in the geosciences. Addressing issues of access, diversity, inclusion, and equity may be approached in many ways. The change agent approach is one promising practice with the potential to help our community to become more deliberate about fostering diversity and inclusion in our classrooms and geoscience programs.

In our example of two-year college faculty development, we attribute early signs of its success to (a) designing and modeling workshop sessions in which the structure and content can be readily adopted or adapted, (b) developing and providing curated resources, and (c) benefiting from the critical contributions of the change agents who, as trusted and knowledgeable colleagues, can leverage the supportive communities to which they belong and who understand and situate their work within their institutional context (Lave & Wenger, 1991). We welcome use of the developed resources (https://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/workshop_materials.html) beyond the two-year college community, and we encourage faculty to develop and broadly share new resources and sessions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the geosciences with other geoscience educators and leaders of professional development programs. Furthermore, we encourage more experimentation with structures that empower educators to become agents of change.

Acknowledgments

The change agents inspire us with their dedication, wisdom, and creativity. We are grateful to them and their administrators for participating in the Faculty as Change Agents project. We thank Bob Blodgett, for his vision for empowering faculty in two-year colleges; Debra Bragg, for her focus on equity and exceptional contributions to improving experiences for two-year college students; and Cathy Manduca, for her creative insights about faculty development and community engagement. We also thank three anonymous reviewers and the editors for their reviews and suggestions, which strengthened this commentary.

Additional information

Funding

The SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project is supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education under grants 1525593, 1524605, 1524623, 1524800, and 1835935. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.