Academic Community-Engaged Learning

Filomena Nunes, Ph.D., is the instructor for NSC 844: Tools for Women in STEM. In the graduate-level course, topics covered include career management, networking, mentoring, leadership, emotional intelligence, and numerous other skills taught through the lens of empowering women to launch their careers in STEM. The course also covers several issues facing women in the field, including harassment.

“There is a strong gender imbalance in the STEM field and there is a ton of research that demonstrates discrepancies in treatment,” Nunes said.

Self-reflection is an integral part of the course, as the class is structured less like a traditional lecture and more like an open dialogue between peers. Most students remain in touch with one another after the course ends.

“It's the only course that I've taught in which students want to continue the course—they don't want the course to end.” Nunes said. “I get a lot of feedback from them that is embarrassingly positive.”

When the course does come to its conclusion, one of the final events is a community engagement project. For the Spring 2022 semester, the event involved extending the reflection that the students in the course were doing to more people on campus. The students set up a big board in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building and invited passersby to “Tell us about your experiences in STEM” by writing them on a sticky note as well as reminder that “You are not alone.”

The results—over 200 students stopped by the board to either share their experiences or take in the experiences of others. The board also sparked conversations amongst faculty with the insight it provided as to the experiences of the students.

Students leave NSC 844 not just with a new “toolkit” for navigating their careers, but a renewed sense of belonging in a field that has been male dominated. Nunes says that seeing that reinforced, or newfound, confidence in her students is what the course is all about. One group of students that met in the course have even gone on to start their own peer mentoring group at MSU.

“This is the part that really feeds my motivation because I see an enormous development in these students,” Nunes said, “They are always emailing me telling me, 'Oh my goodness, I would have never done this if it wasn't for this course!'”