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The tragic murder of Mr. George Floyd brought to the head long-standing issues of racial justice and equity in the United States and beyond. This prompted many institutions of higher education, including professional organizations and societies, to engage in long-overdue conversations about the role of scientific institutions in perpetuating racism. Similar to many professional societies and organizations, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), a leading international professional organization for discipline-based biology education researchers, has long struggled with a lack of representation of People of Color (POC) at all levels within the organization. The events surrounding Mr. Floyd’s death prompted the members of SABER to engage in conversations to promote self-reflection and discussion on how the society could become more antiracist and inclusive. These, in turn, resulted in several initiatives that led to concrete actions to support POC, increase their representation, and amplify their voices within SABER. These initiatives included: a self-study of SABER to determine challenges and identify ways to address them, a year-long seminar series focused on issues of social justice and inclusion, a special interest group to provide networking opportunities for POC and to center their voices, and an increase in the diversity of keynote speakers and seminar topics at SABER conferences. In this article, we chronicle the journey of SABER in its efforts to become more inclusive and antiracist. We are interested in increasing POC representation within our community and seek to bring our resources and scholarship to reimagine professional societies as catalyst agents towards an equitable antiracist experience. Specifically, we describe the 12 concrete actions that SABER enacted over a period of a year and the results from these actions so far. In addition, we discuss remaining challenges and future steps to continue to build a more welcoming, inclusive, and equitable space for all biology education researchers, especially our POC members. Ultimately, we hope that the steps undertaken by SABER will enable many more professional societies to embark on their reflection journeys to further broaden scientific communities.

Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), has been shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of these important benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in the research process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREs in the biological sciences and related disciplines. During the inaugural ENCOUR meeting, a four-pronged approach was used to develop guidelines for the effective integration of E/RCR in CUREs. This approach included: 1) defining appropriate student learning objectives; 2) identifying relevant curriculum; 3) identifying relevant assessments; and 4) defining key aspects of professional development for CURE facilitators. Meeting outcomes, including the aforementioned E/RCR guidelines, are described herein.

Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in anethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), hasbeen shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of theseimportant benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in theresearch process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. TheEthics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR)was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREsin the biological sciences and related disciplines. During the inaugural ENCOUR meeting, afour-pronged approach was used to develop guidelines for the effective integration of E/RCR in CUREs. This approach included: 1) defining appropriate student learning objectives;2) identifying relevant curriculum; 3) identifying relevant assessments; and 4) defining keyaspects of professional development for CURE facilitators. Meeting outcomes, includingthe aforementioned E/RCR guidelines, are described herein.

Many studies illustrate the positive influences of undergraduate research experiences on student learning, attitudes, and retention in the sciences. At our institution, over 90% of the biology majors surveyed reported a desire to participate in undergraduate research, but only 3% per year have the opportunity to work in a traditional faculty-mentored setting. To address this discrepancy, the Department of Biological Sciences is redesigning 12 existing laboratory courses using the principal design elements of course-based undergraduate research experiences. The redesigned courses will span the entire curriculum and provide over 1,700 majors and premajors repeated experiences working on a real scientific problem--human impacts on the American River Ecosystem. We are using a multiyear Faculty Learning Community (FLC) to train and support faculty as they develop, implement, and peer review the research-based laboratory courses. In this article, we describe (a) our strategy for recruiting and engaging faculty to participate in the program, (b) the primary FLC activities with early evaluation data, and (c) lessons learned from the experience and plans for expanding the program across other disciplines and campuses.

A postexam review activity was implemented in an introductory biology course to help students learn from their mistakes and strengthen reasoning and self-regulatory skills. The goal of this study was to design and test a strategy to measure the effectiveness of the postexam review using student performance and attitudinal measures. We evaluated student work for correctness, completeness, and quality of the explanations associated with corrections, and we examined the relationship between quality of responses and performance on course examinations. We investigated the number and variety of strategies and behaviors that students used when preparing for exams and examined student perceptions related to the postexam review as a learning activity. Our results illustrate the potential value of this activity for students and instructors but reveal difficulties that students encounter and inconsistencies between performance and perception. Our findings prompted us to increase the amount of guidance and feedback we offer students and to incorporate additional exercises that promote the development of self-regulatory skills.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are attractive solutions for scaling undergraduate research experiences at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions, where resources for faculty research activities can be limited. The Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success (SIRIUS) project is a unique program that integrates CUREs, coordinated around a local real-world problem, throughout a biology department's curricula. The CUREs are scaffolded to provide all biology majors with multiple opportunities to engage in scientific investigations as they advance through introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses. In this mixed methods, cross-sectional study, we explore students' perceptions of the authenticity of their experiences as they progress through the SIRIUS CUREs. Triangulated data collected from two instruments indicated that students in advanced courses recognized more involvement in research activities and perceived greater authenticity in the science they were performing compared with introductory and intermediate students. Intermediate and advanced students perceived more opportunities for independence; however, experiences with failure and the influence these experiences had on the perceptions of authenticity was primarily observed with advanced students. This study contributes to the growing literature on CUREs with a focus on students from a primarily undergraduate institution with multiple minority-serving designations.