Julie Park: Discrimination and Student-Faculty Interaction in STEM

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@NLENTS

In your study, the specific negative effect of faculty contact on black students is devastating.

I agree, and this is most concerning to many of us. See what @Jordan writes:

@Jordan

I find the idea of student-faculty interactions being simultaneously important and “risky” to be very disconcerting.

I certainly want the minority students in my classroom to feel that I am supportive and approachable. I just worry about unknowingly doing/saying something offensive or unhelpful and then I don’t have a chance to clarify or remedy my mistake.

@Julie_Park, can you help us understand this in some more depth. Can you explain some examples of faculty-student interactions that backfire? What do they look like? What do positive faculty-student interactions look like, in contrast? Some stories on good and bad interactions would be very helpful for me, and suspect the others here too.