About the Hanson Center

The Hanson Center coordinates inclusive STEM education efforts and also serves as a research and collaboration center for STEM studies faculty. The Center’s work supports the identity formation of undergraduates through its leadership of both effective STEM pedagogies and courses and research focused on the “culture of STEM” through STEM Studies or STS (Science, Technology, & Society) lenses. The College’s Inclusive STEM initiative involves making STEM programs, classrooms, and cultures more inclusive as well as fostering cross-College and interdisciplinary work related to STEM programs, culture, and socio-cultural content.

The Center’s mission is to:

• Partner with Lafayette’s Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning and Scholarship to develop and promote best practices for inclusive STEM pedagogies;
  
• Lead efforts to coordinate and sustain collaborative, interdisciplinary faculty research in inclusive STEM pedagogy and studies;
• Develop interdisciplinary, cross-institution efforts in STEM Studies, including curricular innovation around STEM in the contexts of society, culture, and social justice;
• Partner with Lafayette’s Academic Resource Hub and College Transition Specialist to support students in various forms of engagement, including summer transition and mentoring programs.

In 2017, Heidi Hanson ’91 and her husband, Daniel, committed the lead gift to create the Daniel and Heidi ’91 Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM Education at Lafayette. The Hansons’ gift builds on the couple’s long-standing support of underrepresented students and inclusive excellence. In 2009, they supported the Summer Program to Advance Leadership in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (SPAL), a six-week summer program for incoming students from underrepresented backgrounds who have an interest in STEM majors.

We acknowledge that the Center is on land long stewarded, and unceded, by the Lenape people.