Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico

This study investigates how a rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico created and maintained a humanizing STEM educational environment amidst repeated and overlapping natural disasters between 2020 and 2024. Specifically, we explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, severe wildfires, water contamination, and a chemical leak on a STEM initiative known as SomosSTEM (“We are STEM”), a five-year, NSF-funded program at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU). SomosSTEM integrates culturally responsive, research-intensive educational experiences throughout the critical first two years of undergraduate life science programs. Through qualitative analysis of institutional practices and student experiences, we found that SomosSTEM exemplifies a humanizing educational approach defined by authentic care, commitment, and intentional relationship-building by faculty, staff, and administrators. Importantly, our findings underscore that humanizing education must be inherently place-based and attend to the inherent interconnectedness of educational environments with their physical and ecological contexts. This understanding promotes a more expansive and placed-based understanding of humanizing education and highlights the disproportionate effects of environmental crises on rural, resource-limited institutions serving marginalized communities. We emphasize the critical need for integrating environmental justice, STEM equity, and sustainability in higher education.