Dr. Amy Bohorquez Doctoral Dissertation Defense

On April 2, 2025, Dr. Amy Bohorquez successfully defended her dissertation titled: "Decolonizing College Science Courses Through Contemplative Practices."

Abstract:
College students face a growing array of stressors that challenge their academic pursuits. The impetus for this research stems from concerns regarding the lack of students of non-dominant cultures (NDC) and/or lower socioeconomic status (SES) moving forward in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs, regardless of students expressing interest upon entering college. I hypothesized that part of the reason we see continuous decreases in the number of students of NDC/LSES in STEM through the academic pipeline to the workforce originates with student experiences when learning about topics that will disproportionately affect their lives and communities including the disproportionate impact of climate change and scientific/medical bias. Knowing that welcoming environments significantly impact student retention and success in STEM, I investigated whether topics that elicit an emotional response (e.g., climate change, scientific/medical bias) negatively affect feelings of welcomeness. One promising approach to ameliorate this impact involves the respectful introduction of contemplative practices for stress reduction and personal agency development as an aspect of decolonizing science curricula.

In this research, current and former Laney College (community college in Oakland, California) students (60) participated in a survey and subsequent interviews (10) regarding their experience with science education, support systems provided by academic institutions, and exposure to contemplative practices. Results differed depending on the type of inquiry: The more quantitative method of an anonymous online survey led to the conclusion that students of NDC/LSES are not experiencing additional stress from learning about topics that may disproportionately impact their lives and communities. However, in one-on-one interviews, participants were open about their stress, their experiences with these topics, and actions they deemed supportive by faculty, emphasizing activities that involved contemplative practices for stress reduction, especially in STEM courses. Participants noted that, particularly post-COVID-19 pandemic, they were overwhelmed with stressful information, so any new stressful information in class was just additional stress. All but one interviewee noted the impact of information fatigue on learning, making it difficult to separate which topics are the primary cause. This further emphasize the importance of creating welcoming spaces for learning and evaluating information as well as supporting student mental health.