To Make My Chemistry Classes More Welcoming, I Start by Making Students Uncomfortable
Science is becoming more diverse, but to make it more welcoming we need to examine our history and not repeat it
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For the past seven years, I’ve been teaching introductory and organic chemistry to lecture halls full of ambitious students who see my courses as a means to an end—medical school or requirements for a science major. They enter the room on the first day of class with their mental checklist of objectives and expectations; they know they must buckle down to make it to the other side. Given their attention, I use this time to communicate what I feel is the most important message I can send as a scientist.
This profession is trying to becoming more diverse, and rightfully so. Yet, despite being part of an underrepresented group myself, I know that students who are, say, people of color, or identify as LGBTQ may not feel they belong in my class. No number of signs or platitudes will make them more so. Instead, I lean in the other direction—I make that first class a little uncomfortable for everyone by showing a slide with the faces of the white men whose names are on all the chemical reactions we will learn in the coming term; they see Grignard of the Grignard reaction, Claisen of the Claisen rearrangement, Markovnikov of the Markovnikov rule. I ask them to notice what is wrong with this picture and to consider why this might be, a question that is rarely asked in science courses.
Each time I have done this, the room gets quiet as expectations about “syllabus day” in chemistry class are broken.
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As a queer woman and a first-generation college…
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