STEM Education and Training
.jpg "Seth Klukoff (he/him/his) photo")
Seth Klukoff (he/him/his)
Vice President, Thought Leadership
Equal Measure
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Alyssa Na'im, MPP (she/her/hers)
Research Scientist
Education Development Center (EDC)
Waltham, Massachusetts, United States
Carise Mitch, MBA (she/her/hers)
Senior Consultant, Communications
Equal Measure
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Location: Room 301
Abstract Information: How can smart storytelling strategy drive long-term sustainability and start to shift inequitable systems? How does a deep understanding of your audiences lead to communications that bring your theory of change to life? This workshop draws on examples from NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative, which over the past five years has mobilized more than 4,000 participants from across the country into a community dedicated to finding and sharing what works to broaden participation in STEM for historically excluded populations. The workshop will provide real-world guidance and tools, as well as hands-on opportunities to practice identifying and sharing the stories, data, and messages that resonate and inspire action, engagement, and financial and institutional support. Participants will learn the connections between communications, organizational strategy, and sustainability; learn the value of understanding audience and practice exploring the value of their work from different viewpoints; practice audience mapping and workshop elevator speeches and other messages for a range of audiences.The INCLUDES Initiative is one of NSF’s “10 Big Ideas.” It is a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance the nation’s leadership in STEM discovery and innovation through a commitment to ensuring equity, accessibility, and inclusivity in STEM fields. INCLUDES participants, including 17 NSF-funded Alliances, enhance the preparation, participation, and contributions of historically excluded populations in STEM, shifting policies, practices, resource flows, power dynamics, and mindsets to achieve a more equitable national STEM ecosystem where all can thrive.
Relevance Statement: In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) unveiled a set of “10 Big Ideas,” bold, long-term ideas at the frontiers of science and engineering, identifying areas for future investment. NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative (INCLUDES) is one of the ten, a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance the nation’s leadership in STEM discovery and innovation through a commitment to ensuring equity, accessibility, and inclusivity in STEM fields. The vision of INCLUDES is to catalyze the STEM enterprise to motivate and accelerate collaborative infrastructure building to advance equity and sustain systemic change to broaden participation in STEM fields at scale. INCLUDES participants enhance the preparation, participation, and contributions of historically excluded populations in STEM—including Blacks and African Americans, Alaska Natives, Hispanics and Latinos, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, persons with disabilities, persons from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds, women and girls, as well as intersectional identities. Seventeen NSF-funded Alliances, along with a national peer network that has grown to over 4,000 members, strive to create big, bold change for historically excluded populations in STEM. Projects range from empowering diverse students in the U.S. territories and U.S-affiliated islands to pursue their interest in marine and environmental sciences through scientific and professional development training and mentorship, to leveraging the power of pre-college STEM programs (PCSPs) to broaden participation of Black, Latina/o/e, and Indigenous students in STEM, and create systemic change in higher education admissions. For five years, the INCLUDES Coordination Hub has worked to connect people and organizations; curated shared resources, measures, expertise, and experiences to build capacity; catalyzed collective action towards systems change; and built and supported a robust community of practice. Funded by NSF, the INCLUDES Coordination Hub is a collaborative entity; Equal Measure and EDC have led the communications and Network engagement for the initiative, respectively. Our session mirrors the communications capacity building we have facilitated for the Network, strengthening members’ ability to articulate their mission, vision, and goals in relation to broadening participation in STEM, connect them to their organizational theory of change, and identify and share effectively the data points and stories that drive long-term sustainability, both financial and other forms of support, all with an asset-based lens that centers the stories and voices of people and populations too long excluded from the STEM ecosystem.