2024 Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) STEM Leadership Institute®

Visit the 2024 Institute Resource Hub to view our curriculum, see what our alumni are saying, and more!

Institute Overview

Enlightened institutions of higher education recognize the value of cultivating leadership capacity among STEM faculty and administrators. The PKAL STEM Leadership Institute empowers individuals in fully understanding and implementing the theory and practice of navigating the politics of change, addressing inter- and intra-personal conflicts, and re-structuring the institutional systems that limit our capacity for global competitiveness in science and technology.

This Institute is uniquely designed for early- and mid-career STEM faculty, principal investigators, and administrators who are engaged in leading initiatives and interventions aimed at transforming undergraduate STEM education in their classrooms, departments, and institutions. The Institute awakens and sensitizes its participants to the systems, structures, and influences of power and privilege within higher education, equipping them with the tools and skills needed to bring about social change and true reform in undergraduate STEM education.

Experiential learning is a hallmark of the PKAL STEM Leadership Institute. Nearly 60% of the Institute’s curriculum is grounded in the major tenets of experiential learning. The Institute also features the state-of-the-art diversity simulation, My Tenure Trek® (MTT), which guides participants through real world experiences that are representative of cultures, norms, and traditions that are distinctly different from their own. MTT creates deep awareness and clear perspective about the role of microaggressions and implicit biases in higher education, which often undermine national attempts to diversify the STEM workforce.

Who Should Apply?

• Early- to mid-career STEM faculty with a desire to improve undergraduate STEM education through leadership development
• Principal investigators who lead undergraduate STEM reform initiatives
• Administrators (with STEM disciplinary expertise) of academic STEM units

Individuals from community colleges, minority serving institutions, and/or historically underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.