Two members of the EPOL community were recently recognized at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, held in New Orleans, Louisiana in April. Blanca Rincon (Doctoral Student in EPOL) and Casey George-Jackson (Project Director of Project STEP-UP) received an Outstanding Poster Award from Division J (Postsecondary Education).

Their poster, “Underrepresented Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): An Examination of Departmental Climate,” received third place out of 50 entries. Posters were judged based on the theoretical grounding, methods, conclusions, contributions to the field, and overall presentation. This is the inaugural year for the award.

Project STEP-UP, funded by the National Science Foundation, conducts research on underrepresented students in STEM fields at large, public, research universities. The poster highlighted findings from an online student survey regarding underrepresented students’ sense of belonging within their major. In addition to the findings, the researchers offer suggestions on how to improve departmental climate for women and underrepresented minority students in the STEM fields.