Here is the text version of the webinar, Idaho National Laboratory—Providing Access to High-Quality Education and Training by Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM, presented in July 2021.
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[Begin audio]
Erik Ringle, National Renewable Energy Laboratory:
Well hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar. Idaho National Laboratory Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM by Providing High-Quality Education in Training. I'm Erik Ringle from the National Renewable Energy Lab.
Before we get started, I'd like to go over a few housekeeping items so you can participate in today's events. During the webinar, you will be in listen only mode, but you can select audio connection options to listen to your computer audio or dial into your phone. For the best connection we recommend calling in through a phone line. If you have technical difficulties or just need help during today's session, you can use the chat section to reach me. The chat section appears as a comments bubble in your control panel you may also submit questions for our speakers today using the Q&A panel. If you are in full screen view, click the question mark icon located on the floating toolbar at the lower right hand of your screen to open that panel. If you're in split screen mode, the Q&A panel is already open and is located at the lower right side of your screen. You may send in your questions at any time during the presentation. We will collect these and address them during the Q&A session at the end. We are also recording this webinar; it will be posted on the Bioenergy Technologies Office website at a later date along with these slides. Please see the URL provided on the screen here.
Now a quick disclaimer before we begin. This webinar including all audio and images of participants in presentation materials may be recorded, saved, edited, distributed, used internally, post on the U.S. Department of Energy's website, or otherwise made publicly available. If you continue to access this webinar and provide such audio or image content you consent to such use by or on behalf of DOE and the government for government purposes and acknowledge that you will not inspect or approve or be compensated for such use.
Okay! Without further ado I'd like to turn things over to Abby Todd to introduce our topic and speakers today. Abby, take it away.
Abby Todd, Idaho National Laboratory:
Well hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and thank you Erik; I appreciate it. And happy almost weekend. I am Abby Todd with the Idaho National Laboratory and just a few things before we get started. This webinar is brought to you by the Bioenergy Communicators Working Group also known as BioComms. This group is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office also known as BETO. The BioComms Working Group includes bioenergy communicators, laboratory relationship managers, and education and workforce development professionals from the national labs and BETO who gather once a month to strategize on how we can effectively communicate and promote BETO-funded research and development to the public. BioComms also provides the public the opportunity to learn about current and emerging bioenergy technologies, projects, and partnerships through monthly webinars. Which brings me to our presentation today. Idaho National Laboratory providing access to high quality education and training by increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM. Next slide, please.
Okay, our first speaker is Jennifer Jackson, Manager of the K-12 STEM program at Idaho National Laboratory also known as INL. STEM refers to the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics disciplines. Applying her nearly 20 years of experience in education Ms. Jackson has led the K-12 education team and programs at INL for nearly three years. INL's K-12 STEM program focuses on the educational outreach, workforce development, teacher professional development, employee engagement, and more. On behalf of INL, Ms. Jackson partners with Idaho tribes, school districts, informal educators, community colleges, and universities for K-12 education outreach and programming. She is passionate about providing equitable access to high quality STEM learning to under-represented students and preparing a STEM workforce for the future. Ms. Jackson serves on the board of the Idaho STEM action center and interfaces with national regional and local stakeholders, policy makers, and industry partners on STEM education and workforce development. Before coming to INL she held a variety of positions as an educational leader in Idaho, including the Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning for one of the largest districts in Idaho.
After Ms. Jackson presents, we'll hear from Michelle Bingham, Director of University Partnerships at INL. Michelle is a strong advocate for increasing women and minority representation in STEM disciplines, with over 30 years of experience in various business, operations, and human resources leadership positions. Ms. Bingham leads INL's university partnerships organization which includes the following programs: joint appointments, interns, graduate, fellows, post-doctoral researchers, international researchers, academic visitors, employee education, Hiring Our Heroes, and university workforce development. In addition, she has line management responsibility for 450 interns and post-doctoral researchers; so she's busy. Ms. Bingham brings a diverse background and expertise in all facets of human resources and diversity, business management and administration, operations contracts, and communications disciplines. She is co-president of INL's Multiculturals in Leadership Council and is a board member on the Executive Inclusion Council. Ms. Bingham holds a B.A. in Political Science with an emphasis in International Relations from the University of Utah and an MBA from the University of Idaho.
Now before I hand it over to Jennifer, I'd like to remind you that you can ask questions at any time during the presentation using the Q&A panel. We will collect these and try to address them during the Q&A session at the end. All right Jennifer, take it away.
Jennifer Jackson, Idaho National Laboratory:
Thank you, Abby. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. I'm very happy for the opportunity to share a little bit about the K-12 STEM education program for Idaho National Laboratory. We call our program "STEM in the Lab."
And so, next slide, please.
One of the things we have to establish first is really our goal to provide equitable access to high quality learning opportunities for all students. And we focus primarily in Idaho, because we are Idaho National Laboratory, but we do reach out regionally and nationally as well. We focus on increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM and we target four historically underrepresented populations and STEM fields. And these are probably specific to Idaho, but the four we've identified to focus on are rural and remote, economically disadvantaged, female, and ethnic and racial minorities. Just take note right now while we have the map of Idaho in the corner there to see what Idaho looks like and I want you to envision it's very, very large geographically. We're in the section that's marked 6. So later I'll come back to geographical things about Idaho.
Next slide, please.
Some of our education impact - this was 2020, but we reached more than 17,000 students and 817 teachers and principals and we held a lot of events both virtual and in person. This was during a pandemic so our numbers are a little bit different, but we were also able to have 56 INL STEM Ambassador Engagements and our STEM ambassadors are our INL employee volunteers that like to engage with the K-12 audience. One thing to point out is that nearly 50% of all of our education programs and initiatives specifically target underrepresented student populations; and that is something that's very important to me and you'll see why.
Next slide.
One thing to also establish early on is that we consider every job at INL a STEM job. And it doesn't necessarily mean the traditional STEM, but we - of course - we focus highly on the researchers, engineers, scientists... the traditional STEM. But we also have a focus on these STEM adjacent jobs and careers. So those are the technicians, operators, trades crafts, and laborers. We also have a lot of STEM support that are business communication, human resources type jobs, but all of those jobs have a lot in common because they use STEM skills: problem solving, creativity, innovation, collaboration, all of those kind of things. And so, even though we may not be all researchers and engineers we all contribute to the vital missions of Idaho National Laboratory.
Next slide.
One of the things that I want to really drive home is that to build a STEM prepared workforce of the future we need to be highly strategic about the type of STEM learning opportunities and outreach programming that we offer. Our goal is that students engage in these activities and see themselves as scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians so we operate our K-12 education programs understanding that we need to be the most effective by promoting STEM self-efficacy in students. STEM awareness is the lowest level. We have a learning continuum. So all of our STEM activities are categorized into one of these five categories on our learning continuum. The lowest level is STEM awareness and those are basic short duration education interactions. Things like STEM nights, after school workshops, etc. Then we go to STEM career interest and we do a lot of career fairs, job fairs, different events that we're promoting all the different types of STEM careers and those are also short in duration. Then we have the STEM self-efficacy and this is the one that I think is the most important to spend a lot of our time, energy, and resources on. And those are longer duration activities where students start to see themselves in STEM and they actively engage in real world problem solving and they think like scientists and mathematicians. These are also longer in duration like longer-term camps and such. Then we have learning and achievement and that's long-term engagement with rigorous curriculum and achievement is measured through pre and post learning assessments. And our last one is where we hope to get to, but we don't see those dividends paying until many years later, because that's where students are already engaged in STEM education and career pathways and they've actually chosen education career pathways in higher education and their careers.
Next slide.
All right so one of the things to know and notice is Idaho is geographically very large and that map doesn't do justice; it's very large. So it's primarily a rural state in fact a whopping 88 percent of Idaho is rural and many of those rural communities are also quite remote and isolated. Providing equitable access to STEM learning opportunities to the rural and remote communities presents unique challenges to reach the most students and to create a network - a professional network - of rural and remote schools, we created what's called the rural STEM collaborative and that collaborative has a menu of programs and initiatives and tools tailored to remote communities and their needs. I do have a pretty good understanding of the needs of rural communities as I grew up in a small Idaho potato town with a population of 465 people so I know the educational needs for these communities are very different than urban communities. And I think the trick to capitalize on this is to capitalize on the strengths of rural towns and to create meaningful education experiences for those students. A successful strategy in a large city might be a huge failure in a small town. One of the differences to capitalize on are the main economic drivers for these rural communities and in Idaho they do happen to be agriculture and then up north we have a fair amount of mining as well. So the best approach to rural STEM learning is place-based learning so that students can experience STEM in their own environments with familiar topics and issues and create a meaningful context. Real world problem solving looks a lot different in a rural community than in an urban setting. So to reach rural students we use two main approaches, we're mobile and take the learning to them which means a lot of miles on the road and then we also offer online tools and platforms to engage with us. We to do things to make it mobile and to take the learning to them, we offer STEM kits, we have mobile labs such as STEM makerspace labs, we have traveling STEM trailer exhibits, and then we also have our STEM ambassadors—our INL employees that volunteer to go out and do workshops or sit on panels or do these other types of experiences out in the rural communities with us. For online we use Learning Blade, which is a STEM curriculum, but also a lot of STEM career exploration platform; and we have the INL coding coalition; we have a vast learning library—a learn from home library that I would suggest that you all check out if you're looking for resources for K-12 students. And then we have regional offerings as well we invite students from all over to come to do invention convention science—both science and engineering fairs, etc. We also offer a pretty robust education grant program that touches the rural communities as well.
Next slide.
So one of the strategies that we've implemented that works equally well in urban or rural settings is a work-based learning program. This educational strategy provides students with real life work experiences where they can apply academic and technical skills from their own high school learning and develop their employability. Our high school work-based learning program includes: job shadows, mentoring pre-apprenticeships, and internships. We work with college and career counselors at high schools to recruit underrepresented students for the majority of these placements. The best education and workforce development resources and research suggests that a comprehensive work-based learning program contains three components: you need to have that alignment between the classroom, knowledge and skills, and then the actual workplace learning; you also need to have the application of academic technical and employee employability skills in the workplace - so they need to be able to practice those; and then we have the support from classroom teachers or possibly career counselors and workplace mentors.
Next slide.
So for our work-based learning program we've designed a scalable program serving East Idaho students which includes: monthly job shadow opportunities, mentoring, pre-apprenticeships, and high school internships. For an intensive summer program for high school 11th and 12th graders, there will be two tracks running simultaneously. One will be an applied career technical education track focusing on trades, manufacturing operations. And then a science and research track. These are six week paid on-site experiences and they are meant to be real-world applications. We expect 24 students in year one with plans to scale up to 40 students in future years.
Next slide.
One very special underrepresented population I'd like to highlight are the Shoshone-Bannock tribal students from the Fort Hall reservation. They are neighbors to the south and a lot of INL land borders the reservation. They are the largest of five tribes in Idaho. And in most cases tribal students fall into at least three of the four of our underrepresented student populations that I mentioned. If you have female tribal students, you've most likely hit all four of the identified underrepresented populations. So one of the most successful programs we've partnered with the tribes on is the American Indian Services Pre-Freshman Engineering Program and this started, I think about 12 years ago stemming from an NSF grant and it is well researched and has a lot of studies behind it to be very effective. We have now hosted two of the camps...we had to miss last year during the pandemic, but we now have a cohort that has moved from seventh grade on to ninth grade and we will continue on with that cohort. But this program, we co-host the Summer STEM Camp with AIS and provide funding, staff, speakers, workshops, tours, and hands-on activities for the students. The PREP program is a six-week immersive experience with rigorous STEM curriculum in problem solving, logic, and engineering for incoming 7th, 8th, and 9th grade tribal students. It is meant for them to progress through the three years of the program with a progressively more difficult curriculum and like I said this was our second year and we use this camp to create cohorts of students and after graduating from the PREP program we're going to provide mentoring and work-based learning experiences for them and then eventually scholarships and internships for those students.
Next slide.
So another recent workforce development partnership was just launched last month at an official signing ceremony down in Fort Hall and this is a true collaboration between INL and the Shoshone-Bannock school district and tribes.
Next slide.
It's really a historic partnership on workforce development and education. It's a long-term collaboration—with no specific end date—to build a STEM prepared workforce pipeline of the future with job placement assistance and higher education pathways for tribal students in the high demand STEM field. The tribal school will implement STEM curriculum and instructional practices to achieve an official STEM designation with cultural relevance and responsiveness for the Shoshone-Bannock indigenous people.
Next slide.
So the there are three primary objectives of this memorandum of understanding that came out of this a partnership with the tribes. The first one is to implement STEM curriculum and instructional practices in grades 6 through 12. That will lead to an official STEM school designation and an accreditation process from the state board of education. That will take at least three years, but it's a really valued and highly sought after designation from the state board. And then number two would be to create workforce development pipelines into high demand careers. And we've identified two of these careers: one is industrial mechanical technology and the other is construction and trades. And we will design and implement the coursework and work-based learning opportunities with Shoshone-Bannock Junior/Senior High School and Idaho National Laboratory. The third one is to create pathways into STEM with higher education through mentoring scholarships in internships.
Next slide.
Like all indigenous peoples the Shoshone-Bannock tribes have a long legacy of STEM education in their traditional ways of knowing and understanding their world. The guiding principle of this partnership is to be culturally responsive and preserve the cultural relevance while infusing STEM into the learning and pointing out where STEM would be applicable and beneficial for these students.
Next slide.
The future of this MOU, we hope that it will become a workforce development model and become a demonstration site. So I'll invite you all in three years to come and visit and see how it's doing. And we'll conduct an impact effectiveness study on this model as well. We have a lot of partners we could not have done this without including the Idaho STEM Action Center, the Idaho Workforce Development Council, State Board of Education, Idaho State University, and College of Eastern Idaho.
With that I will just leave you with this last slide.
I encourage you to go to STEM.INL.gov where you can see a lot more about our career exploration tools, about the workforce development programs and education resources, and you can access our online resource library there at STEM.INL.gov. So with that, I am going to introduce you to my colleague and turn it over to Michelle Bingham.
Michelle Bingham, Idaho National Laboratory:
Great! Thanks Jennifer! Good afternoon and thank you to the Bioenergy Technologies Office for this opportunity to provide some insight into INL's best practices as it pertains to workforce development and education outreach. You heard from Jen and all the great work that Jen and her team is doing with regards to priming the pipeline. What I'd like to now go into is what do we do post high school through career.
Next slide, please.
So to give you some insight before we can dive into that, INL and the work that we do, we're a multi-faceted laboratory with very diverse programs. We cast a gamut from nuclear science and technology, to materials and fuels, energy and environment, and national homeland security.
Next slide.
Some examples of the work that we're doing, the impact that we have, not only does it impact the nation, but also across the world. Pertinent to this particular conversation is the work that we're doing on the biofuels research and the biomass feedstock.
Next slide, please.
In order to handle the complexity of all the work that we have that opportunity to address on behalf of the nation, we need to have a really good exam good understanding of the disciplines necessary. Jen talked quite a bit about the STEM workforce and the science, the engineering, the technicians, the business personnel. This slide just provides a snippet of the different disciplines that we're looking to fill on a continual basis.
Next slide.
In order to do that, we need to have a really good idea of what exactly are our workforce needs. So we've got gone all in on identifying and understanding what are our needs. So we've had some very robust workforce planning activities that have been underway trying to have a clear understanding of what's on the horizon with regards to retirements coming up, new work scope that's coming up, and also just changes with regards to all the different technologies and areas of opportunity. What do we need to do in order to support our nation's energy needs? Part of the workforce pipeline is it's not just getting those new students in and getting them encouraged to go into the positions, it's providing them real viable opportunities to be able to gain the experience that's necessary whether it be through an apprenticeship, an internship. Maybe it's also looking at what can we do to invest in our existing workforce, maybe they need to change in skill set. So how do we partner with the appropriate community colleges or universities in order to provide those needs? It's also having a clear understanding that maybe the disciplines or the skill set that we need...maybe it doesn't exist. So how do we build and develop those partnerships with the right institutions?
Next slide.
What's going to be paramount with all of this, we talked about early on with regards to diversity, equity, and inclusion. I want to lead with a quote from our laboratory director, "We have so much to learn from those whose experiences and backgrounds differ from our own. Our work is difficult and complex. Producing the positive outcomes expected of us will only happen if everyone performs at their best." So what's going to be paramount to that is understanding what our INL values are. The values of excellence, inclusivity, ownership, safety, teamwork, and integrity. I'd like to talk a bit more with regards to inclusivity as we go through the presentation.
Next slide.
Understanding INL. So Jen had talked about how large the state of Idaho is and the rural communities. What I also want to put in perspective is the INL facility you know we cover...I think it's 890 square miles. So it's roughly, I think it's roughly, three quarters the size of the state of Rhode Island and so it's a very expansive area. But what we try to draw for our individuals that come here is not only coming to do great work, but also being able to have access to some of the most beautiful areas in the nation. What we believe in is we want people to understand...what are the contributions that they're doing? How might it affect the environment? How can they also have that appropriate work-life balance, if you will. Because it's not all just about work.
Next slide.
Going back into what we do to actually address the pipeline needs. So INL's university partnerships organization is a bit unique compared to some of the other laboratories. What we do is we have all of these different functions under one area of responsibility, but I also want to point out that there is no one size fits all. When you look at how we build out and we make those connections, we need to look at it through multiple facets. So what can we do to develop our student pipeline whether it be through interns, co-ops, practicums? How can we enable the research? By providing graduate fellowships, post-docs, joint appointments, workforce development. Again, how do we invest in our existing employees, but how do we invest in our community colleges and our universities not only in the region, but across the nation as well in order to address those problems? It's also finding the right strategic partnerships.
Next slide.
What you can see with the challenges that we have the honor of addressing on behalf of the nation, in order to do this work we bring in participants from across the world. So year-to-date, university partnerships for INL we brought in personnel from 31 different countries and 44 different states and Washington, DC. So this just shows the footprint. There's so much work that needs to be done and we can't do it alone. We need to be able to pull in the right talent and give them those opportunities.
Next slide.
This just breaks down the data a little bit more with regards to the different programs that we have. So for example, providing those opportunities to work on the challenges that we have. Those that have the post-doctoral researchers. We have 95 year-to-date coming from 64 different institutions. Our graduate fellows, 29 graduate fellows that are working on their Ph.D., are doing finishing up their research here at the Idaho National Laboratory from 14 different institutions. Interns, you know COVID? It's been an interesting year and a half and we have interns that... there are some...that are working in our facilities but many are doing it in a virtual environment. Year-to-date, we have 417 different interns from all the way from bachelor pursuits up to doctorate pursuits from 116 different institutions.
Next slide.
We also believe that we need to look at a holistic approach to talent development. And while INL has a university partnerships organization, what we have is the unique capability to be able to tell those different institutions or work with them—whether it be through an internship, a faculty researcher coming here, a postdoc. But we also need to look at what can we do to provide those meaningful opportunities for those individuals, again whether they be a student or a faculty member. So all those variety of the programs we also want them working together, because that helps us get to the next level by learning from one another, addressing the challenges, and solving different things and helping us do better. Our organization, were if you will, from start to finish. So when our individuals come here from the recruiting through the time in which they're with us at the laboratory, we go all in to ensure that they have an appropriate experience. We want them to be able to do great work, but also be able to develop as a future energy leaders of our nation.
Next slide.
The resources for the mentors. Part of that and making sure that we have a good opportunities and good work that's being performed, we need to help our mentors as well as our mentees. So what we also do is we have different opportunities in order to help train and learning never ends. So how can we help with providing meaningful mentoring workshops? We also go into communication styles. We also go into cultural differences as well as generational differences as well. Never before have we had four different generations in the workplace at any given time. From INL as you saw from an earlier slide, we recruit talent worldwide. So we also want to help our individuals understand the cultural differences that are important. As you heard from Jennifer before, our relationship with the Shoshone-Bannock tribe is something that we value, but as part of that we also need to ensure that we understand from a cultural perspective. How can we honor their traditions as we're doing the work that needs to be done? So those are some additional things that we do that makes us unique at INL.
Next slide.
Some of the resources. So this just provides a little bit more information where you can find out what is it that we're doing with regards to building out our workforce for the future. What are the different programs, the different opportunities, and also looking at what we can do to help improve equity and inclusion for our workforce of the future. And with that, I'll go ahead and turn the time back over to our facilitator and we'll get to some questions. Thank you.
Abby Todd:
Well thank you so much, Michelle and Jennifer. I can tell you personally I'm a mother of a ten-year-old who has shown a strong interest in engineering and I feel very grateful to work for a laboratory that works so hard to prepare our workforce for the future. So it's really great to hear about all these programs that maybe one day he can take part in. And so now we would like to do some questions and answers. Just as a reminder, you can drop your question into the Q&A panel in Cisco WebEx.
So we will start with the first question: "How are participants in your programs informed about the INL education and workforce development programs you've outlined today?"
Would one of you like to take it?
Oh! Jennifer I think you're muted.
Michelle Bingham:
So while Jen's on mute, I'll just go ahead and start with that. And with regards to how we advertise our different opportunities, so we use a lot of the typical formats. We do job postings, social media, career fairs, word of mouth, those researcher contacts. The other piece is our contact information is out there so you can also look to us to get out to find out more information about any of our programs. But also, INL.gov is a great place to go.
Jennifer Jackson:
And I'll second that, because our website is kind of the best starting place for anything with K-12 so and that is hosted on INL.gov so STEM.INL.gov. We also use external partners a lot for different ways to get the word out, but I just go back to that STEM.INL.gov or INL.gov in general.
Abby Todd:
It's great. Thank you.
The next question is: "Which communication channels are the most successful?"
Jennifer Jackson:
I can start on this.
I'm going to expand that maybe not just communication, but maybe just visibility and outreach. There's nothing like it, especially if you're going out to the rural communities. What's kind of different is that when you plan an event at a rural community and you show up with...especially if you bring pizza or treats or something, when you bring some hands-on activities. What's been really fun and remarkable is that the whole town shows up. Some of our rural communities and some of the events that we do are very, highly, well attended events that if you do the same kind of an event in the city, you're not going to get the same participation. I think another strategy and another way to get the best participation and visibility is targeting your audience so that you know that there are certain places, locations, certain schools that have high representation for Spanish-speaking students or Hispanic students in general. And so, I would... if you have a Spanish-speaking event and you go to their location it seems to be a lot better communicated and also attended.
Michelle Bingham:
And I would add that: I think it depends. It depends on what audience you're looking at; whether it be the student population in my world or faculty or the researchers. And also, I think it's important - well I know it's important - when you're talking about inclusion and diversity and equity, that's not going to be a one-time thing. It's really diving in being committed and it may take time to build those relationships. And maybe year after year maybe months after months. This isn't for the faint-hearted. When you show commitment it's understanding your audiences, understanding if you're looking at increasing diversity, you're increasing opportunities for underrepresented and underserved communities. You may be in it in multiple forums. In some respects you can do some verbal communications, some you can do written, some it's just that constant. It's also important to understand who you're dealing with. Is it a high context or is it a low context? Does it take more time to build those relationships with those individuals? For example, my background is Asian and so it's really about building those connections and building those ties with the individuals. It's building trust in order to be able to have a concrete relationship. So again, going back, it's not a one size fits all it just varies.
Abby Todd:
Great answers. It sounds a little more complicated than showing up with pizza, but please let me know the next time you do have some of those events. I will show up.
All right. Let's see. "I think there is a Biomass Feedstock National User Facility at INL. Do you tap into this resource as a training opportunity?"
Michelle Bingham:
Yes and absolutely. So you have a user facility here at the Idaho National Laboratory and we also engage in workplace development opportunities. So making the connections and whether it be through internships, fellowships, postdoc researchers, researchers, faculty researchers can come and do work here as well. We also have them through that user facility. There's also opportunities for underserved populations to be able to come in. So for example, a recent example was, a local company who came in and they needed to be able to utilize the facility in order to increase the value of the alfalfa crop. Something for somebody like me. Initially I may not have thought about all the variability that exists with the crop. So being able to go into the facility is something that you can do. So yes absolutely and because it is designated as a user facility that is open, it just requires a proposal if, you will, for what is the purpose of using that facility.
Abby Todd:
Great. Great.
Well I think this next question is one definitely directed towards Jennifer: "How did the high school partnerships come together? Did the schools reach out to Idaho National Laboratory or vice versa?"
Jennifer Jackson:
I'm going to assume that you're talking... this question refers to the Shoshone-Bannock schools I hope that's the case.
Yes. Initially it was the school district at Shoshone-Bannock tribes that reached out to us and wanted to. They've consistently been looking for opportunities to partner and especially with internships. But this was the school district and the junior/senior high school specifically that reached out to us and had a vision of INL helping them with some workforce training but at the high school level that would translate into positions; paying positions right out of high school. So that we would be able to train them and nurture them in high school and create the coursework that would prepare them to go directly into those positions. And these are career technical positions. So that's why we needed to enlist the help of our community colleges that already have programs like this and we plan to create kind of competency-based coursework that is fully aligned to INL needs - workforce needs that these students can then choose to go into these cohorts and also spend some time at INL on site and then into the workforce. So we'll help them all along the way, but it was them coming to us with a desire to place more of the tribal member students at INL in high-paying good positions.
Abby Todd:
That's great. That's a great opportunity.
So Michelle this one is for you: "Are the university partnerships that were shown on the map universities or people from those universities?"
Michelle Bingham:
Shown on the map is just where the individuals are coming from, but we also have participants from all of those different regions as well. So it's a little bit of both. It's a little bit of a mixed bag.
Abby Todd:
Okay.
Michelle Bingham:
And I think we had the number of people and the number of institutions that were shown on the map. And we can break it down by state if needed.
Abby Todd:
Great!
Here is a great one. "Did you find it easier or more difficult to reach underserved and or rural students over the past year and a half while using virtual outreach tools?" And the second part of that question is: "Did you have any hands-on or interactive activities that worked well in that virtual format?"
Jennifer Jackson:
Yes. During the pandemic, certain opportunities arose that we probably wouldn't have utilized prior to that. And part of that was one of the responses from the state of Idaho and other entities that were trying to help education as it moved to more of a virtual environment was that they really increased the wireless capabilities and made sure that students and families had devices and wireless technology. And so with that, you have now really good avenues. We also utilized and have been a partner with our public television station and they have a lot of really great resources too. So that's another one that reaches really remote communities just over regular airways. But so anyway, online resources became a lot more important and they became better utilized by rural and remote communities and students. But the second part of that question, "Were you able to do hands-on things," that's where the STEM kids come in, because what we ended up starting to put together were workshops where we're actually having a STEM professional from INL do the workshop virtually and in some cases even record them and then we blast that out or just have it available for teachers. And then we send the STEM kits with the materials, on the hands-on pieces, to them. So we didn't actually go there, but we used the postal service and FedEx and all that to get them there and they were able to pass out the kits and participate in the hands-on pieces of that. And that's something that we had not done before the pandemic and it's something that we'll continue to do, because it's a really nice way to reach some of these rural and remote areas for them to participate in some of the same activities. One of the fun ones we did was when the Mars rover landed recently in February, we had an event and we had an activity. And so we sent out an activity that went along with that and they watched the landing and they performed their activity to.
Michelle Bingham:
And I'll just add to the... brand and we were able to do... Gosh! COVID opened up a lot of opportunities and we were able to reach out to many underserved populations, provide them meaningful experiences, and many of our student interns. For example, over the last two years, we did their experience remotely and they did have meaningful hands-on work that they could do. And those that needed to come into our facilities and we did bring them on site, we did get permission for them to come on site. And because it was going to be important, it wasn't just giving them, for example, an internship just for the sake of giving them an internship, we wanted to give them something that they could take what they've learned in the classroom be able to move forward. And I hate to end on a downer, but I will. And we had one element that we really struggled with was, for example, with some of our tribal colleges. We really wanted to expand our relationships with them and it just breaks my heart, but so many of those populations were hit so hard with COVID, they just didn't have that ability for us to actively recruit, because they were just trying to take [inaudible] of their own. But we're hoping as the nation as we come out of this pandemic, we're all in on this. We want to provide opportunities and connect with them in any way that makes sense for them.
Abby Todd:
Yeah, very difficult time, but it sounds like you guys handled it really well. It does.
The next question is: "How does your office nurture and maintain these important relationships with external stakeholders? Holding an event or staffing a booth starts the conversations and makes connections, but how did the conversation proceed from there to more durable bonds and how did your team build trust and communication with external stakeholders?"
Jennifer Jackson:
You want to start Michelle?
Michelle Bingham:
I'll start and then you can tie it up with a bow, if you will.
I think it's being all in. It isn't just that one time thing. It's that constant attention. From an INL perspective, of course, and being a government contractor, of course, we're going to have metrics of success. We do lessons learned on a continual basis: "What's working well," "What are some areas of improvement," and "How do we continue to make ourselves better?" Getting the feedback, not only internally, but externally as well, and it's doing the reporting and showing the success showing the commitment. And looking at: Where do these individuals go that come through our programs? Do they transition? Say to a full-time position with the Idaho National Lab or do they go into academia or do they go into another industry that maybe we have partnerships with? For some individuals that are doing research, we track publications, we track presentations, if you will. But it's that constant interaction, not only with the individuals, but also with the institutions to be able to show what is this return on investment that shows us why this is important for us to continue.
Jen?
Jennifer Jackson:
Yeah. And I think, Michelle, you've hit it a couple of times in your presentation, too, about just that relationship building. And I think it's about being strategic about it, also. A great deal of our job is cultivating those external partnerships and we couldn't do what we do in my program without all these external partners. And like just for example, we have an officially recognized STEM ecosystem in Idaho. And then that's part of a bigger international STEM ecosystem and without all of the networking and sharing of resources and best practices, we'd be doing everything in isolation. But beyond that it's just every single partner is going to be a little different, have different needs, and different strengths. And it's really about listening. And I think that's where...if you listen to what they need and you know what your capabilities are, match those up to see where you can partner and be effective and I guess really further both of your strategic goals then that's where it really becomes lucrative and positive for the lab and everyone.
Abby Todd:
That's great! We are getting close to the top of the hour, but there's a question here that I think really ties into what you were just discussing. But instead of with partnerships, with stakeholders. Well it's more pointed towards the U.S. Department of Energy. I'll go ahead and read it for you; it's a bit long, but hopefully it does touch on some of the metrics that, Michelle, you mentioned as well.
So it says: "Many of the new U.S. Department of Energy requests for proposals for research are asking for diversity and inclusion plans but not providing budget outside of fundamental research—like budget for PI and existing graduate students—to do much in the way of outside activities and recruitment. Do you have any ideas for universities? What are some reasonable metrics? As you mentioned these plans should be for long term rather than by research project. So how to best communicate this with DOE reviewers?"
Michelle Bingham:
So is the question for universities that might be meaningful?
Abby Todd:
Yes, for universities.
Michelle Bingham:
Oh I have so many ideas.
I think what's going to be important is the way I look at it with inclusion and diversity is we want to bring in the best talent as a female. I don't want people look at me and say, "Oh, she's an Asian female. Let's give her the job." I want them to give me the position, because I'm the most capable person. And so I think, looking at it from a university perspective, I think we're all learning with regards to the new guidance that's coming out with the proposals. But it's the opportunities that you're providing. How do you cast that broader net to bring in those student populations to come in? What are the opportunities that you're going to provide? How diverse is a team? Diverse in my estimation may be broader than just the typical, if you will, the human resource definitions of diversity. Do you have a variety of individuals with different experiences coming in? That makes a stronger team. What I would like to hope, is that what they're also looking for is how can we build out programs and that speak to inclusion and diversity, but are sustainable. That this isn't just a one-time shot, if you will, but how do we bring in the best talent? How do we give those opportunities to, maybe, to those that are in a rural community that maybe never had any thought of...in Idaho of leaving the farm, but coming here and making an impact in the biofeedstock industry and work that we're doing that is so impactful across the world. So I think that's something that needs to look at. I also fundamentally... I believe that you need to look at... understand what it is that your strengths are within your institution and then play to those strengths. Maybe knowing where there's areas of opportunities that maybe you need to improve upon. But it isn't trying to become something that you're not and it's taking a long time to come to that realization; kind of embrace who you are and embrace bringing in and being open to different ideas, because that's going to help us all move and the work that we're doing forward. The research that we're doing we need new ideas, we need new bodies, new people, new perspectives.
Abby Todd:
I can tell you're excited about that topic and I encourage the person that asked this question and anyone else to reach out to Jennifer and Michelle with any additional questions. And we'd like to continue the conversation for sure and we're always happy to help. I'm speaking on behalf of Jennifer and Michelle, but thank you, you two. I really appreciate you with your time and these wonderful presentations. We are about out of time. So thank you, to everybody that attended the webinar titled Idaho National Laboratory Providing Access to High Quality Education and Training by Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM. Thank you again to Jennifer and Michelle and Idaho National Laboratory. Once again the webinar recording will be uploaded to the BETO webinars page on Energy.gov. Thank you so much for joining and have a wonderful day.
Jennifer Jackson and Michelle Bingham together:
Thank you everyone.
Michelle Bingham:
Bye-bye.
[End of audio]