STEM Departmental Action Teams

Departmental Actions Teams have been implemented in all eleven STEM departments that house undergraduate degrees: Bioengineering, Biological Sciences; Chemical Engineering; Chemistry, Civil, Materials, & Environmental Engineering; Computer Science; Earth & Environmental Sciences; Electrical & Computer Engineering; Mathematics, Statistics & Computer Science; Mechanical & Industrial Engineering; and Physics.

These teams are key to pursing institution-wide change that will improve classroom climate, instructional quality, and degree pathways at UIC. Each team will interrogate the barriers to student success in their classrooms with close attention to institutional data and develop and implement an action plan to address those barriers by enacting
curricular, instructional, and policy reforms. The work of these teams will be complemented by a campus level
initiative that disseminates high-quality faculty professional development with a concerted focus on
helping faculty implement evidence-based inclusive teaching practices. The effort proposed here has
evolved out of a five-year strategic planning initiative at the university that involves representatives from
campus-, college-, and department-level administrators working with faculty across the university to
identify how the student experience at UIC must evolve. With support from this project, UIC aims to
become a national leader in instructional improvement through data-driven reforms.