The Access Assembly: sharing ideas and enabling informed adaptations

Founded in 2014, the Access Network brings together nine student-centered, university-based programs that are pursuing systemic change towards a vision of a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible STEM community.Network and program leaders are primarily students (undergraduate and graduate) and early-career faculty, many of whom started out as student leaders in Access programs.Over the last nine years, Access has brought people together (virtually or in-person) for an annual event called the "Assembly."The environment and structures at the Assembly enable the sharing of ideas, excite people to translate those ideas to their local programs, and create space for informed and deliberate adaptations.Drawing on post-Assembly survey data, we describe where ideas come from, and where attendees intend to apply them.We also see that participants from various institutional positionalities report learning new ideas at the Assembly and having confidence to adapt them to their local contexts.