Teaching the way I wish I was taught: Design and implementation of a class on historically excluded and underrepresented scientists

As the first Inupiaq person to earn a PhD in microbiology, I learned the hard way that groups of people have been excluded from science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the United States since the first University was built by Black and Indigenous slaves. Students from historically excluded and underrepresented (HEU) backgrounds typically do not see themselves in textbooks, conferences, or classrooms, especially in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) fields. Similarly, students from these backgrounds and non-excluded backgrounds typically do not understand the history or consequences of exclusion. Here I describe the development and implementation of a class that teaches undergraduate students about the current state of diversity in STEMM jobs in the US, the history of exclusion that resulted in a deficit of people from various backgrounds, the consequences of excluding these people from research specifically, current leaders in research from HEU backgrounds, and how to implement changes. The students are taught how to communicate their findings in oral and written communication to various audiences. Based on decades of experiences, discussions, readings, and more, I teach students the reasons there are so few people from HEU backgrounds in academia and in STEMM specifically, and what can be done at the University level to ensure that people from all backgrounds are represented in STEMM. In this way, I teach students what I wish I had been taught decades ago.