Efforts to increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) will not be truly successful until the systemic issues within academia that have historically prevented marginalized populations from persisting and succeeding there are transformed. Stachl et al. present the details of a collaborative effort to improve the academic climate of an R1 (very high research activity) STEM department: that of the University of California, Berkeley. Longitudinal assessment of the academic climate by annual department-wide surveys indicated that these interventions have succeeded in shifting perceptions. These results support the idea that implementing practical, sustainable, and data-driven frameworks for effecting change can improve the climate within a departmental community.
ACS Omega 6, 14410 (2021).