2019 Station1 Highlights
Dear Station1 Friends, Supporters, Alumni, Partners, and Colleagues,
2019 marked a significant milestone for Station1. We write to share our work over the past year and to express our deep gratitude to the over 70 visionary and committed individuals and organizations who have supported Station1. In our second year of full operation, we continued to pursue the daunting challenge of building and designing a nonprofit higher education institution focused on a new model of inclusive and socially-directed science and technology.
The Station1 institutional design and program activities are guided by considerations of internally and externally-driven systems change. Internally, Station1 expands educational opportunity and provides transformative STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education, research, and internship experiences to talented students from across the nation and the world. Station1 also innovates and demonstrates what is possible without traditional organizational, disciplinary, and cultural constraints. Externally, Station1 has the unique capability to foster systems change through deep expertise, integration, and collaboration with existing higher education institutions to catalyze systemic and equitable change, thereby also driving inclusive innovation ecosystems.
Through both internal activities and external collaborations and partnerships, Station1 is focused on the following key areas:
Developing and fostering inclusive, equitable, and asset-based STEM education, research, and innovation, beyond access and pipeline considerations to foundational and holistic redesign;
Advancing socially-directed science and technology — interdisciplinary curriculum and research which integrates science, technology, and the humanities, arts, and social sciences to foster inclusive, ethical, and sustainable science and technologies;
Pedagogical advancement at the interface of inclusion and active learning, for example, through learning space design, inclusive pedagogies and mentoring, and living-learning communities;
Programmatic, pedagogical, and digitally-enabled approaches to enhance the quality, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of experiential workplace-based learning to create a foundation for lifelong professional and career advancement for a dynamically changing future of STEM work; and
Studying, understanding, and cultivating inclusive innovation ecosystems through data analytics, higher education institutional design, partnerships, and socially-directed science and technology.
In 2019, The Station1 Frontiers Fellowship, was a life-changing journey for all involved. This all-expenses paid, ten-week residential summer experience enabled our students to explore the intersection of personal passions and visions in the context of the deep societal impacts of frontier science and technology through state-of-the-art research internships and a shared curriculum, unique in the nation and the world, on socially-directed science and technology. Drawing from an overwhelming applicant pool, we welcomed an amazing cohort of Station1 Fellows to Massachusetts. 100% of the 2019 Fellows are from minoritized groups, first generation to attend college, and/or low income, and 55% are women.
The Station1 Fellows participated in STEM research internships (270+ hours) in leading science and technology companies and university laboratories in emerging fields such as computational biotechnology, biomanufacturing, agricultural technology, civic technology, inclusive media, advanced manufacturing and digital automation, autonomous aeronautics, and nanoscale materials design. The Fellows also participated in a four-day, immersive inclusive leadership and collaboration institute (40+ hours), which was delivered in collaboration with our partner nonprofit organization LeaderShape®, followed by a formal curriculum on personal and professional advancement (30+ hours). The Fellows engaged with a shared curriculum on socially-directed science and technology (70+ hours) which covered topics such as historical trajectories of science and technology, knowledge systems and cultures of science and technology, societal structures, systems change and social innovation, equitable and inclusive approaches to scientific research and technological development, sociotechnical studies of computation and data, ethical reasoning and social contexts, sustainability and remediation, and creative futures and unintended consequences. We are extremely grateful to our partner LabArchives who provided an outstanding and unique cloud-based digital platform that was used to deliver and archive the shared curriculum and resulting student-generated work.
The programmatic components of the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship (e.g. undergraduate research, experiential project-based learning, social inquiry, high quality STEM internships, interdisciplinary engagement, inclusive leadership and mentoring) form a unique combination of high impact educational experiences. These types of opportunities create an invaluable foundation for the Fellows’ academic success, long-term career advancement in a diversity of careers in STEM fields, and competitiveness in application to higher levels of education. Evaluation data of the 2019 Station1 Frontiers Fellowship indicated that the experience was academically, personally, and professionally transformative to the participants. The Fellows described the experience as amazing, incredible, uplifting, life-changing, meaningful, and rewarding. One of the 2019 Fellows reflected: “Station1 was a life-changing experience. I never imagined I would have tears coming down my cheeks when saying goodbye to my mentors, instructors, and Fellows. They became my family and my home away from home. Thanks to my internship, I gained significantly hands-on skills that would be crucial for my career path. The curriculum at Station1 helped me to expand my horizons and to think deeply about all the connotations of technology and innovation. I now feel confident to seize every opportunity that comes my way.” In addition, members of the 2018 inaugural alumni cohort of Station1 Fellows have already gone on to significant positive longer term outcomes, including college graduation (both A.S. and B.S.), transfer from A.S. to B.S. degree programs, academic success, additional prestigious STEM research internships, acceptance to graduate school, permanent job offers in STEM fields, study abroad, and continued engagement in socially-directed STEM.
Locally, we continue to cherish every day in Lawrence and the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts. We are deeply grateful for our partner, Lupoli Companies, and the superb co-located student housing and beautiful learning space at Riverwalk. Our collaboration with the Lawrence History Center enabled us to incorporate the rich history of the city as an active part of our curriculum and the Fellows' introduction to Lawrence. Through our national and international engagement, and our alumni, now distributed across the nation, we continue to share our enthusiasm for Lawrence and the Merrimack Valley far and wide.
In 2019, Station1 was active in shaping the national and international dialogue and catalyzing collaborations across the higher education system. We increased our external engagement with over 2300 individuals from across the nation and the world attending Station1 convenings, events, workshops, invited keynotes, talks, and panels. In 2019 and upcoming in 2020 these include, for example, The United Nations (UN), The National Institute of Health (NIH), The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), The Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR), The MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (MIT J-WEL) Biennial Conference, The Annapolis Group (composed of the presidents of 130 leading national independent colleges), The Society for the Social Studies of Science, and internationally, The Eisenhower Global Conference on the Future of Work (Cartagena, Colombia), the Danish Technical University (Copenhagen, Denmark), The Society for the History of Technology (Milan, Italy), The University of Neuchatel (Neuchatel, Switzerland), and the University of College London (London, UK).
At the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Materials Research Society, two Station1 workshops were attended by undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty representing over 40 higher education institutions from across the nation and the world. Station1 planned and will hold a pedagogical workshop on June 24-26, 2020 entitled “Co-creating the Future Through Socially-directed Science and Technology,” with educators from 40 higher education institutions expected to attend, which is funded through a 2018 grant from MIT J-WEL Higher Education Innovation Grants program. In 2019, The Station1 team received a third MIT J-WEL Higher Education Innovation Grant on Socially-Directed Materials Innovation which will develop a workshop and convene a seminar series on this topic in 2021. Another highlight of 2019 was Station1’s participation in the six-month New Profit (a social venture philanthropy firm) Proximity Accelerator, which included an unrestricted grant, and supports social entrepreneurs in pursuing scale and social impact. Lastly, in 2019 the Station1 social media following grew to over 35,000 followers across academia, industry, the social sector, and government.
In summary, the Station1 major accomplishments for 2019 included:
Advancing the Station1 model of inclusive and socially-directed science and technology, in particular the development of new pedagogical materials to scaffold the experiential modules and generative student work in the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship shared curriculum;
Increasing the enrollment of the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship by 22%;
Beginning the development of a digital internship matching and management platform to enhance the quality, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of experiential workplace-based learning;
Carrying out extensive national and international engagement through convenings, events, workshops, invited keynotes, talks, and panels attended by over 2300 individuals nationally and worldwide;
Participating in the six-month New Profit Proximity Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator; and
Increasing the number of supporters to over 70 visionary individuals and organizations, including a third MIT J-WEL Higher Education Innovation Grant, developing an earned revenue source through new higher education partnerships that constituted 26% of the total annual revenue, and carrying out a research study in collaboration with the Tufts University Gordon Institute on long-term sustainable postsecondary financial models.
Looking toward the future, Station1 has many exciting plans yet ahead. One key objective for 2020 is to further advance and scale our unique STEM education model regionally, nationally, and internationally through a collective impact network. Additionally, Station1 has plans to develop a research center and venture lab, both focused on socially-directed science and technology. Over the past year, a number of collaborative project teams have been convened to develop both of these exciting initiatives. Station1 will continue work on the development of a sustainable postsecondary financial model to monetize Station1 assets and expertise into new earned revenue sources, as well as to bring Station1 to other cities. In the longer-term, Station1 continues preparation for licensing to add degree-granting programs to its portfolio of activities.
We invite you to continue to engage with us online (Website, LinkedIn, Twitter), join us at upcoming events, volunteer your time pro bono, collaborate on projects, and consider making a tax-deductible donation with plans for an even more ambitious and exciting journey ahead.
Sincerely,
Christine Ortiz, Founder and co-Instructor of Station1 and Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ellan Spero, Co-founder, Chief Curriculum Officer, and Lead Instructor at Station1 and Historian of Science, Technology, Business, and Higher Education and Instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
What is Station1? Station1 is a nonprofit higher education institution that is based on a new model of socially-directed science and technology education, research, and innovation. Station1 maintains a foundation of inclusion and equity, learning through frontier project-based inquiry and research, and the integration of science and technology with societal perspective and impact. Station1 expands educational opportunity in science and technology by creating and implementing transformative education, research, and internship programs for a diverse range of students which foster academic success, lifelong career advancement, and continuous, self-directed learning for our changing world. Station1 takes an interdisciplinary approach to education, research, and innovation to foster the development of inclusive, equitable, ethical, creative, and sustainable science and technologies.