NSF projects cut by DOGE include dance-making in physics, computer science sister circles | The College Fix

Freaking NUTS!!! - Daniel Nuccio - Northern Illinois University 

Examples include projects that 

• sought to increase diversity in biological anthropology, 
• promote astrophysics in American Indian and Alaskan Native communities, understand how students from the rural Arctic engage with Polar science, 
• examine the experiences of undergraduate LGBTQ students in STEM, 
• study “the effects of gender composition on disruptive science,” and 
• further elucidate the roles of a growth mindset and other factors in the “development of an identity as an economist” among women and racial minorities.

Notably, some projects took rather unique approaches to these types of goals. 

• One $1.5 million project that was nominally about physics outreach intended to build on pilot work that is said to have demonstrated that “authentic inquiries into science through embodied learning approaches can provide rich opportunities for sense-making through kinesthetic experience, embodied imagining, and the representation of physics concepts for Black and Latinx teens when learning approaches focused on dance and dance-making.”
• Another $1.5 million project, which was previously covered by The Fix and highlighted in a 2024 Senate report concerning questionable NSF-funded DEI projects, attempted to leverage “Black feminist epistemologies and Black women[’]s ways of knowing, as critical frameworks” and utilize “the concept of sister circles to create counter spaces to build community and resist structural oppression” in computer science programs...