Puerto Rican Higher Education Researchers Association, Thriving not just Surviving (HEARTS) conference

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this conference aims to support faculty in Puerto Rico so that they can impact the retention and graduation rates of Hispanic students through implementing best practices and improving faculty wellness, resulting in improved student/faculty engagement and faculty grant-writing skills. Puerto Rican faculty are in urgent need of physical, emotional, pedagogical, and financial support so that they can refresh, rejuvenate, and adapt to transition from surviving to thriving in this pandemic-fueled “new normal.” The Puerto Rican Higher Education Researchers Association, Thriving not just Surviving (HEARTS) Conference will provide this support for faculty to heal, learn, share and grow to better support Hispanic STEM students and the HSIs of Puerto Rico.

The conference will bring together faculty in higher education research programs from across the island. The conference will address topics of wellness, grant-writing support, best practices for virtual and/or hybrid learning (especially in STEM) and culturally competent pedagogy. These four topics, combined into one event, will offer holistic support for the faculty that are on the frontlines of the implementation of education research programming that seeks to improve outcomes for Hispanic students in STEM and broadly in higher education in Puerto Rico.

Faculty will be better equipped to meet the challenges of this “new normal” if they are supported by each other, focused on their own wellness, trained for writing competitive grants, and trained in best practices for hybrid and/or virtual STEM instruction in a culturally supportive environment to promote the success of Hispanic STEM students.

The design and analysis of this mixed-methods evaluative research study are based on Kezar’s (2013) framework of organizational learning through “sensemaking.” The project will help faculty “make sense” of their value and how they require personal wellness and stronger communities to be effective. Participants in the conference will learn about successful capacity-building efforts of other STEM faculty and administrators which resulted in student success.

The conference will address the topics of (1) faculty wellness, (2) creating communities through sustained dialogues, (3) grant-writing, and (4) culturally responsive pedagogies. The main goals are to (1) equip HSI faculty from PR to meet the challenges of today’s “new normal” by focusing on their own wellness; (2) create a sustained dialogue on the importance of collaboration among HSIs in Puerto Rico and in the US; (3) empower faculty to use best practices for Hispanic students to promote the success and (4) receive training for competitive grant-writing (to secure funds to support their work).

The conference activities will generate evidence of faculty improved faculty wellbeing, sense of belonging, self-efficacy in grant-writing, and implementation of best practices in the classroom to support STEM students. This evidence will be used to seek additional funding to support yearly iterations of the conference with the long-term goal of forming a self-sustaining education research association on the island that will foster long-term excellence in higher education research for HSIs in Puerto Rico as well as collaborations with the US mainland to promote education research that builds capacity for student success.

The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.