Using culturally responsive and sustaining course design to increase retention of underrepresented STEM undergraduates

ABSTRACT Undergraduate science courses are in urgent need of increased retention and recruitment of underrepresented minority (URM) college students. There is a significant gap in current approaches to curricular design and their efficacy for URM student retention. To address this, we propose increased incorporation of culturally responsive and sustaining education (CRSE) methodology in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula design. We identify well-documented and effective strategies, emphasizing practices that value students’ prior knowledge and relate course content to students’ lived experiences. Unlike prior applications of the CRSE conceptual framework that have focused on implementation, here we address curricula design. We present several examples, including the design of a new undergraduate course titled “Intersections Between Race, Biology, and Technology: More Than Skin Deep” that we created in 2024 at Medgar Evers College, an urban Predominantly Black Institution. This course addresses misconceptions about the intersections of race, genetic variation, and artificial intelligence. CRSE develops students’ STEM identity through engagement with real-world issues, such as racialized health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Embedding CRSE practices into its design additionally aims to reduce individual instructor’s cognitive burden for CRSE implementation. Application of CRSE practices in college-level science courses offers actionable ways to improve relevance and engagement. We propose that educators approach collegiate course design more intentionally to ensure that CRSE practices are encoded within syllabi in order to maximize the positive impact on URM recruitment and retention in STEM fields.