Roderick Lee is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the School of Business Administration at Penn State Harrisburg.  Additionally, he is a Research Associate with Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. He received his Ph.D. in Information Sciences and Technology with a concentration in Management and Organization from Penn State University, and an MBA and MSIS from Penn State Harrisburg.

Roderick has leveraged his scholarship to inform policy and practice at Penn State while a member of the Select Penn State Presidential Commission on Racism, Bias, and Community Safety, the Joint Curricular Taskforce on Racial and Social Justice, and current member of the American Talent Initiative/Powered by Publics Steering Committee. Moreover, Roderick provides strategic equity leadership and expertise as a member the PhD Project Advisory Council and the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania Board of Directors.

Four current projects focused on achieving equity and justice in STEM education and careers include the following:

Co-PI: NSF BPC-DP: Cultivating Academic Inclusion and Career Engagement to Increase the Persistence of Minoritized Students in Computing. The intended outcomes of this project include: (1) reductions in equity gaps in student learning outcomes; (2) improvements in student-faculty interaction; and (3) stronger student identification with technology careers.

Penn State Equity Pedagogy Network, Equity Pedagogy Scholar: Architecting Culturally Inclusive and Psychologically Safe Growth Mindset Cultures in STEM Classrooms: A Vision for Advancing Equity for All. This project included launching a faculty learning community focused on designing classroom environments for equitable student success and hosting an expert to deliver a research talk on “Creating Cultures of inclusion in STEM” and facilitate a growth-mindset workshop.

Core Planning Group Member: HHMI Inclusive Excellence 3 Learning Community (IE3LC) grant entitled “Meaningful Evaluation of Effective and Inclusive Teaching Through Changes in Policy, Effective Instructor Development, and Optimal Sources of Evidence.” The challenge focuses on how can we evaluate effective inclusive teaching, and then use the evaluation in the rewards system including faculty promotion and tenure?

Student Success Priority Co-Lead: As part of the special project for the Office of the President on DEIB at Penn State, my role included working with the special adviser for institutional equity to create a written report that summarized our foundation, opportunity gaps, and recommended steps forward.