2027 PKAL STEM Leadership Institute: Apply

Application Review Criteria

• SECTION I: Leadership Profile Review

  Leadership Profile. Reviewers consider the extent to which the application demonstrates:

  • experience leading formally or informally through roles, initiatives, programs, teams, change efforts, or other responsibilities.
  • meaningful connection to undergraduate STEM education and the people, programs, or institutional environments that shape it.
  • prior responsibility for influencing others, contributing to decisions, navigating challenges, advancing change, or doing more than completing assigned tasks evidence of an evolving leadership journey and provide context for why an intensive leadership experience may be relevant at this point.
  • Leadership influences: The applicant demonstrates awareness of people, experiences, opportunities, or other influences that have shaped how they understand or practice leadership.

• SECTION II: Leadership Reflection Review

  Understanding the Landscape of Undergraduate STEM Reform. Reviewers consider the extent to which the application demonstrates:

  • awareness of significant issues, conditions, or changes impacting undergraduate STEM education beyond the applicant's immediate department or institution.
  • ability to make a meaningful connection between broader national challenges and how they are experienced, manifested, or understood within the applicant's own institutional context.
  • understanding of the complex ways in which undergraduate STEM reform is influenced by multiple and often interacting factors, as opposed to a presentation of the challenge as a simple problem with an obvious solution.
  • awareness of the structures, people, cultures, policies, resources, incentives, competing priorities, or other forces that can enable or constrain change.

  Understanding Yourself as Leader. Reviewers consider the extent to which the application demonstrates:

  • meaningful insight into the applicant's own leadership behaviors, tendencies, strengths, assumptions, or patterns.
  • capacity for reflection beyond simply naming a strength or challenge
  • awareness that leadership occurs in relationship with others and demonstrates some understanding of how the applicant's leadership may affect colleagues, teams, relationships, or organizational dynamics.
  • curiosity about their own leadership and a willingness to examine areas that may be difficult, unresolved, or still evolving.

  Your Own Pressing Leadership Challenge. Reviewers consider the extent to which the application demonstrates:

  • identification of a challenge that requires influence, judgment, relationships, adaptation, change, or navigating uncertainty—not simply completion of a task or project.
  • awareness of the competing interests, relationships, organizational dynamics, uncertainty, resistance, or other factors that make the challenge difficult to navigate.
  • consideration of not only what other people or the institution need to change, but also the applicant's own role within the challenge.
  • something meaningful about the applicant's own leadership capacity that the challenge is requiring them to examine, strengthen, or approach differently.
  • evidence that the applicant has a real and sufficiently complex leadership context through which they can engage with and apply the Institute's leadership development experience.

• SECTION III: Letter of Support Review

  Letter of Support. Reviewers consider the extent to which the application demonstrates:

  • writer’s knowledge and familiarity with the applicant's work, leadership, and institutional context to provide a meaningful perspective.
  • specific evidence that the applicant is prepared to engage in an intensive and reflective leadership experience, rather than relying primarily on general praise or descriptions of professional accomplishment.
  • context for why participation in the PKAL STEM Leadership Institute is particularly relevant to the applicant's current responsibilities, leadership challenges, or trajectory.
  • how strengthening the applicant's leadership could contribute to their department, institution, organization, or broader STEM education environment.
  • meaningful support for the applicant’s full participation in the Institute and for applying their learning after the Institute.