About the Seminar
Prof. Perez presents her research on best practices for recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in undergraduate STEM programs. She begins by highlighting a central issue as to why students fall through the cracks: many physics departments, educators and even TAs pass the blame and responsibility of retaining, mentoring and providing resources for these students. She proceeds to present immediate, actionable practices that can be put in place at all levels of teaching that can have a measurable impact on undergraduates. These include adjusting syllabi and policy sheets, restructuring office hours and eliminating grading on a curve. Moreover, she stresses that policies and departmental changes that positively impact underrepresented students will necessarily have positive impacts on all students, and the departmental culture as a whole.
Resources
As a starting point to issues of retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM classrooms, Prof. Perez suggests reading Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences by E. Seymour and N. M. Hewitt.
Additionally, here is a list of references from her talk, and further suggested readings on the subject.