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Article

Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico

by
Elvira J. Abrica
1,*,
Deryl K. Hatch-Tocaimaza
1,
Sarah Corey-Rivas
2 and
Justine Garcia
2
1
Department of Educational Administration, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
2
Department of Biology, New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM 87701, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci. 2025, 15(10), 1362; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15101362
Submission received: 18 July 2025 / Revised: 24 September 2025 / Accepted: 1 October 2025 / Published: 14 October 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rethinking Science Education: Pedagogical Shifts and Novel Strategies)
Versions Notes

Abstract

This study investigates how a rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico created and maintained a humanizing STEM educational environment amidst repeated and overlapping natural disasters between 2020 and 2024. Specifically, we explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, severe wildfires, water contamination, and a chemical leak on a STEM initiative known as SomosSTEM (“We are STEM”), a five-year, NSF-funded program at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU). SomosSTEM integrates culturally responsive, research-intensive educational experiences throughout the critical first two years of undergraduate life science programs. Through qualitative analysis of institutional practices and student experiences, we found that SomosSTEM exemplifies a humanizing educational approach defined by authentic care, commitment, and intentional relationship-building by faculty, staff, and administrators. Importantly, our findings underscore that humanizing education must be inherently place-based and attend to the inherent interconnectedness of educational environments with their physical and ecological contexts. This understanding promotes a more expansive and placed-based understanding of humanizing education and highlights the disproportionate effects of environmental crises on rural, resource-limited institutions serving marginalized communities. We emphasize the critical need for integrating environmental justice, STEM equity, and sustainability in higher education.

1. Introduction

Rural Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) occupy unique positions within higher education, providing critical pathways into fields such as STEM for students historically marginalized by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (Garcia, 2019; Garcia et al., 2019). However, these institutions frequently operate in contexts marked by limited resources, structural inequities, and heightened contextual vulnerabilities not limited to their social and community settings but inclusive too of environmental vulnerabilities that escalate exposure to climate-related shocks like wildfires, heat waves, floods, hurricanes, and more, often with limited institutional capacity to respond (Alexander, 2023; Koricich et al., 2018; R. S. Wells et al., 2019). From 2020 to 2024, New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), a rural-serving HSI, endured an unprecedented sequence of crises—including the COVID-19 pandemic, catastrophic wildfires, regional water contamination, and chemical leakage incidents. Launched shortly before this period of upheaval, NMHU implemented SomosSTEM (“We are STEM”), a five-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to improve STEM retention among first-year life sciences students through culturally responsive, community-connected, and research-intensive learning experiences. These back-to-back environmental catastrophes are neither new nor likely to subside, as anthropogenic climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of extreme events (Swain et al., 2020). These risks call for heightened awareness across higher education of how environmental disruptions increasingly shape educational conditions, priorities, and student experiences.
As a field of study, higher education comprises multiple strands of scholarship that guide how institutions understand, design, and assess learning environments in STEM fields, strands that are often seen as independent and siloed rather than interrelated and interconnected. For example, higher education literature on learning environments emphasizes campus climate, a psychosocial set of dimensions used to describe the overall atmosphere, culture, attitudes, and behaviors experienced within a college or university environment (Begaye-Tewa et al., 2024; Telles & Mitchell, 2018). This line of research has established that inclusive and culturally responsive pedagogical practices significantly improve student engagement, academic success, and retention among racially diverse and historically marginalized student populations (Duncan et al., 2023; Museus & Smith, 2016; O’Leary et al., 2020). The evolution of research on college learning environments and campus climates is inherently motivated by researchers who are dedicated to emancipatory institutional transformation through a project of uncovering and ameliorating what can be profoundly unwelcoming or hostile social environments for students of color and other marginalized groups (Hart & Fellabaum, 2008; Hurtado, 2023; Soria, 2018). Research on environmental justice and the material climate of higher education has focused on sustainability that prioritizes justice and equity and emphasizes the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, within the limits of supporting ecosystems (Agyeman, 2008). This research has focused on concepts like sustainability and planning (Sterling, 2004). More recently, scholars have called for integrating environmental justice with educational equity frameworks in higher education, arguing that climate justice must be pursued as part of a broader, intersectional commitment to equity and systemic transformation within higher education (Hatch-Tocaimaza et al., 2025; Kinol et al., 2023). Such calls highlight the urgency for climate change education to move beyond mere scientific literacy and technical innovation to explicitly address climate justice, empowering students to connect global environmental impacts with local and intragenerational inequities (Stapleton, 2019; Trott et al., 2023). These perspectives align with Agyeman’s (2013) concept of just sustainability, which argues that sustainability efforts must simultaneously address ecological integrity and social equity.
Relatedly, the notion of a humanizing approach to higher education emphasizes the quality of relationships among individuals within university settings. This approach highlights learning environments in which institutional members—faculty, staff, and administrators—genuinely care for students, actively engage in meaningful relationships, and explicitly validate students’ cultural identities and lived experiences (Museus, 2014; Rendón, 2009). However, prevailing literature on education and higher education often maintains an anthropocentric perspective, concentrating mainly on human interactions while neglecting the interconnected environmental contexts within which education occurs. In contrast, decolonial and critical scholars critique the colonial foundations of educational institutions and advocate for integrating Indigenous knowledge systems and place-based understandings into higher education (Castro, 2019). Parsons and colleagues, for instance, critique conventional justice frameworks for their limited perspectives, specifically highlighting their failure to adequately address capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, all of which marginalize Indigenous sovereignty and their rights to meaningful participation in environmental governance. Similarly, Whyte (2016) emphasizes that injustices occur when institutions systematically erase essential socioecological contexts necessary for Indigenous communities to fulfill their relational responsibilities toward humans, nonhumans, and the environment. He describes Indigenous traditions as evolving systems of responsibility shaped historically to address socioecological challenges, depending on continual adaptation and responsiveness. Disruptions such as violations of sovereignty, cultural erasure, and colonial dispossession severely impair these systems’ adaptive capacities. Higher education institutions exhibit a comparable anthropocentric limitation by largely neglecting these environmental and socioecological dimensions. Indigenous scholars further underscore the necessity of adopting decolonizing environmental justice frameworks, emphasizing intergenerational equity and acknowledging relationships with more-than-human entities (Parsons et al., 2021). Ultimately, traditional frameworks within higher education predominantly focus on human-centered rights and outcomes, overlooking vital interconnected ecological relationships.
Our empirical study of NMHU’s SomosSTEM program began in 2020, with the initial aim of examining whether and how the program provided an educational environment conducive to the development of psychosocial outcomes including science identity, sense of belonging, and self-efficacy. At the outset, our focus was guided by prevailing theories of student success in higher education, which emphasize relational care, cultural validation, and responsive instruction. We sought to identify these dimensions within the SomosSTEM learning environment, particularly because it was designed to be an integrated web of supportive, place-based, and culturally responsive activities. Early findings pointed to clear evidence of institutional care, flexible and responsive curricula, and meaningful relationships between students and faculty—all hallmarks of traditional humanizing approaches. However, as the study progressed, our investigation was profoundly shaped by a cascade of environmental catastrophes, revealing an inseparable relationship between educational practices and the ecological contexts in which learning occurs. This realization surfaced a key limitation in prevailing conceptions of humanizing pedagogy: they rarely account for the material and ecological conditions that shape students’ lives, learning experiences, and institutional contexts—or the ways in which those experiences reveal how social life is inherently entangled with broader ecological systems and with one another. Consequently, this paper expands the definition of humanizing approaches to STEM education, integrating ecological and social dimensions of the realities faced within rural, Hispanic serving, STEM contexts. We advocate for a more holistic, justice-oriented, and ecologically integrated approach to higher education policy and practice in the face of ongoing and future environmental disruptions.
In light of these insights, our research is guided by the following question: In what ways does the SomosSTEM program enact humanizing educational practices that extend or complicate traditional conceptions, particularly in the context of ongoing environmental disruption? Ultimately, this paper advocates for a more comprehensive, justice-oriented, and ecologically integrated approach to higher education policy and practice to effectively respond to ongoing and anticipated environmental disruptions.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Rural Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)

Rural Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) play an essential role in advancing equity within STEM education and careers. Serving as crucial access points to higher education, particularly for Latinx students and other racially/ethnically minoritized groups, HSIs have become instrumental in broadening participation in STEM fields (Núñez et al., 2015; Herrera & Rodríguez-Operana, 2020; Zamani-Gallaher et al., 2019). Research indicates that a significant majority of Latinx community college students pursuing STEM disciplines enroll in either an HSI or an emerging HSI, with four-year HSIs educating nearly 60% of Latinx STEM undergraduates (Herrera & Rodríguez-Operana, 2020). Beyond student enrollment, HSIs significantly impact the diversification of the STEM workforce by producing substantial numbers of STEM graduates annually. Hispanic-serving community colleges (HSCCs) and four-year HSIs collectively graduate a significant percentage of STEM majors, with notably strong six-year graduation rates for Latinx STEM students relative to prevailing trends (Herrera & Rodríguez-Operana, 2020). Thus, HSIs—particularly HSCCs—play a pivotal role in promoting equity and fostering diversity within STEM fields. However, rural HSIs often face unique geographic, structural, and resource-based challenges, including limited funding, faculty shortages, and infrastructural barriers such as unreliable internet connectivity. Despite these hurdles, rural HSIs demonstrate resilience and innovation in advancing equity through dedicated faculty engagement, culturally responsive programming, and meaningful community partnerships. Research underscores how faculty at these institutions actively serve as institutional agents, enhancing STEM educational equity by engaging in recruitment, mentoring, and skill-building programs, significantly supporting students’ integration into STEM networks (Bensimon et al., 2019).
Moreover, rural HSIs frequently utilize asset-based approaches that emphasize and incorporate students’ cultural strengths and values into STEM education. For instance, Núñez et al. (2021) illustrated how HSIs participating in the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) effectively leveraged cultural values such as confianza (trust), respeto (respect), and familismo (family commitment) to bolster Latinx students’ participation and success in computing fields. Such culturally relevant pedagogies aim to validate students’ identities and foster inclusive learning environments (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020). In sum, rural HSIs critically contribute to equitable STEM outcomes by adopting a culturally responsive and asset-based approach. Their practices integrate educational equity with humanizing pedagogical strategies, addressing both structural inequities and environmental challenges inherent in under-resourced rural communities. This comprehensive approach reinforces the necessity of connecting equity-driven pedagogies with supportive institutional cultures to effectively serve diverse student populations in STEM disciplines.

2.2. STEM Learning Environments

STEM learning environments, based on extant higher education literature, typically reflect an individualistic, meritocratic, and competitive culture, aligning closely with white cultural norms such as rugged individualism, hierarchical power structures, objective science, and competition (Bonilla-Silva, 2022; Mills, 1997; McGee, 2016, 2020; Sue, 2004). Consequently, racially minoritized students are often underrepresented, facing racial isolation, negative stereotyping, and heightened racial stress, which creates additional cognitive burdens, forcing them to continually reassess their identities and cultural values relative to dominant STEM norms (Abrica, 2022; Abrica & Dorsten, 2020; Estrada et al., 2018b; Hurtado et al., 2009; McGee, 2016, 2020). Notably, students are frequently pressured to assimilate, internalizing messages that their personal and cultural identities must conform to white, patriarchal norms, leading to experiences often mischaracterized as imposter syndrome rather than systemic racism (McGee et al., 2022).
A growing body of literature emphasizes the marginalization of racially minoritized students through historically dominant norms and underscores the importance of inclusive campus climates and culturally responsive pedagogies (Cobian et al., 2024; Duncan et al., 2023; Museus & Smith, 2016; O’Leary et al., 2020). For instance, O’Leary et al. (2020) demonstrated that faculty engagement in culturally responsive teaching training enhanced awareness of diverse student identities, reduced exclusionary classroom practices, and improved student belonging and engagement. Duncan et al. (2023) similarly advocated for intentional inclusion of students’ cultural knowledge, humanizing student–faculty relationships, and instructor cultural competencies as essential elements of equitable STEM classrooms. In a comprehensive review of STEM education and servingness at HSIs, Ro et al. (2024) draw on Garcia et al.’s (2019) definition of servingness as a multidimensional notion that goes beyond baseline consideration of Latinx student enrollment to include outcomes and experiences (indicators) as well as institutional policies, programs, and systems (structures). Ro et al. (2024) demonstrate that humanizing and culturally responsive pedagogies are more than instrumental to student success. They are foundational to how servingness is understood and enacted in practice. They synthesize findings that such pedagogies foster institutional conditions where Latinx students’ lived experiences, cultural identities, and community knowledges are affirmed and meaningfully integrated into the learning environment. Rather than treating instruction as a neutral or secondary domain, their review positions pedagogy as a central mechanism through which HSIs fulfill their mission to serve by transforming classrooms into relational, equity-oriented spaces that counter deficit perspectives and racialized STEM norms. This underscores calls by Bensimon (2018) and Duncan et al. (2023) to reframe student outcomes not as indicators of individual effort or preparedness, but as reflections of contextualized institutional responsibility.

3. Conceptual Framework Humanizing STEM Learning Environments

Our analysis is grounded in the concept of humanizing STEM learning environments, particularly in minority-serving institutions. In contrast to the competitive, hyper-individualistic culture that has traditionally characterized STEM education (McGee, 2020), a humanizing approach centers students’ humanity, cultural identities, and sense of community. Humanizing pedagogies draw from Freirean educational theory, emphasizing mutual respect, care, and the validation of learners’ lived experiences as part of the curriculum (Freire, 1970; Rendón, 2009). In practice, a humanizing STEM environment intentionally validates students’ backgrounds and ways of knowing so that they are not forced to assimilate to predominantly white, middle-class norms historically entrenched in STEM fields. Community-based and culturally engaging STEM learning strategies are key to this approach, as they anchor learning in students’ home communities and cultures (Estrada et al., 2018b; Hurtado et al., 2009).
We highlight two important dimensions of a humanizing STEM environment: (a) community-based learning and (b) culturally relevant undergraduate research opportunities. Prior research shows that a community-oriented learning environment can bolster science identity, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging, especially for Students of Color (Syed et al., 2018). When students see their education connected to their community’s needs and knowledge, they develop stronger motivation and institutional connection (Guiffrida, 2003; Museus et al., 2011). For example, programs that incorporate service-learning, group projects on local issues, along with fostering a ‘familial’ atmosphere among students and faculty, have been effective in supporting underrepresented students in STEM (Lane, 2016). Communities of learning emerge through shared interests and trust among participants, strengthened by activities like mentoring, social events, and collaborative study that affirm a sense of familia (Lane, 2016).
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are instances of STEM teaching and learning practices that lend themselves well to maximize the benefits of community-based learning by turning one-on-one research apprenticeships into inclusive whole classroom endeavors (Bangera & Brownell, 2014). CUREs embed authentic research projects into coursework, giving many students early hands-on research exposure. Studies over the past decade indicate that CURE participation improves students’ content knowledge, confidence, and clarity about STEM pathways (Brownell et al., 2012; Alkaher & Dolan, 2014; Corwin et al., 2015). Importantly, CUREs have been linked to increases in students’ science self-efficacy and identification as scientists (Corwin et al., 2015). These gains are thought to arise from the combination of engaging with real-world problems and fostering closer faculty–student and peer interactions around scientific inquiry (Brownell & Kloser, 2015). In the context of SomosSTEM, CUREs are yet further integrated into a broader learning ecosystem that emphasizes cohort-building and cultural relevance. Early research experiences, whether through CUREs or summer internships, have been shown to spark students’ motivation to persist in STEM and to contribute to developing a STEM identity (Graham et al., 2013; Rodenbusch et al., 2016; Schultz et al., 2011). The relational aspect is key: students benefit most when research experiences are coupled with a supportive community and mentors who affirm their place in STEM (Estrada et al., 2018a).
Museus’s (2014) work on culturally engaging campus environments (CECE) provides a useful framework here. Culturally engaging environments incorporate “educationally purposeful engagement” (p. 200; e.g., challenging coursework, collaborative learning, discussions in and out of class) and attend to racial/cultural contexts by validating students’ cultural knowledge and ways of engaging. This means that practices like group projects, service-learning, or faculty interactions are implemented in a way that is responsive to students’ cultural backgrounds and values (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020; Museus, 2014). For instance, a group project might be structured to allow bilingual communication if many students are Spanish-speaking, thereby valuing their linguistic resources. Prior research cautions that student engagement is not automatically positive for all students; how engagement is experienced depends on whether the environment signals inclusion or marginalization (e.g., Dowd et al., 2011). If frequent faculty interactions send messages that a student’s cultural identity is devalued or that they do not belong, then those interactions can diminish rather than enhance the student’s growth. Thus, simply increasing engagement opportunities is not enough. What matters is inclusive engagement, wherein students from nondominant groups can engage on equitable footing and find their identities and communities respected (Hurtado & Ruiz Alvarado, 2015). Our conceptual framework therefore focuses on how the learning environment is cultivated to be validating: faculty and staff act as institutional agents who demonstrate care, build on students’ cultural strengths, and actively counteract the exclusionary norms that often pervade STEM (Rendón, 2009; Samuelson & Litzler, 2016)
In summary, a humanizing STEM learning environment, as we define it, is one that: (1) grounds STEM learning in local community contexts and issues; (2) provides early and accessible research opportunities (like CUREs) that integrate cultural relevance; and (3) nurtures meaningful relationships of care and support between students and faculty. This framework aligns with current discussions in environmental and science education about the need for culturally sustaining pedagogies that engage underrepresented learners (Birmingham & Barton, 2017; Castro, 2019). It is especially pertinent in the rural HSI setting of NMHU, where students are predominantly Latinx, Indigenous, and first-generation—populations for whom a sense of belonging and representation in STEM are often lacking. We examine how this humanizing approach was implemented and how it endured and evolved through successive crises.

4. Materials and Methods

This study employed a qualitative case study design (Yin, 2018) to explore how the SomosSTEM initiative at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) created and sustained a humanizing STEM learning environment amidst multiple overlapping environmental crises between 2020 and 2024. A qualitative case study was selected because it allows researchers to investigate complex social phenomena within a bounded context, capturing rich, detailed insights from real-world settings (Yin, 2018). In this project, the case is the SomosSTEM integrated web of activities. SomosSTEM (“We are STEM”) is a five-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), launched in 2020 at NMHU, a rural Hispanic-Serving Institution situated in rural northeastern New Mexico that serves a diverse student population, including approximately 54% Hispanic and 10% American Indian students, with a significant proportion being older, first-generation, or part-time students. The program specifically aims to improve retention and academic success among first-year undergraduate students in STEM fields, particularly life sciences, many of whom belong to historically underrepresented populations in STEM (Abrica et al., 2024). SomosSTEM explicitly addresses known barriers to STEM retention, including insufficient math preparation and delayed student engagement with introductory STEM coursework (Estrada et al., 2018b; Museus, 2014). The initiative integrates several culturally responsive, research-intensive interventions across students’ critical first two academic years, including:
  • Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) embedded in introductory courses that engage students directly in research related to local environmental issues (Bangera & Brownell, 2014).
  • Summer Bridge Science Challenge Academy, providing foundational academic preparation alongside community-based research projects designed to build student cohorts and support early college integration (Ashley et al., 2017).
  • Summer Research Internships that offer intensive, community-connected research experiences, reinforcing students’ identities as STEM scholars (Robnett et al., 2018).
  • Community Voices Seminar Series, involving interactive dialogues with local community leaders, alumni, and STEM professionals, emphasizing connections among STEM disciplines, cultural contexts, traditional knowledge, and environmental justice (Museus, 2014).

4.1. Participants and Recruitment

Undergraduate participants were recruited each year of the study from students actively involved in SomosSTEM activities that faculty incorporated into classrooms and events, including CUREs, the summer internship program, and the summer bridge academy. Recruitment efforts targeted these groups purposively to ensure participants could speak directly to their experiences with faculty interactions and program supports during periods of disruption (M. Q. Patton, 2015).
Recruitment strategies combined in-class announcements by faculty, postings on Brightspace and the university student portal, targeted email invitations, and referrals from faculty mentors and near-peer student leaders. To maximize participation, recruitment was timed around the academic calendar, with focus groups scheduled after major CURE activities or mid-semester but before final exams. When in-person access was disrupted—during COVID-19 closures, wildfire evacuations, or water contamination shutdowns—recruitment shifted to email outreach and virtual invitations, supplemented by direct contact from faculty and staff checking on student well-being. Across the four-year study, 47 undergraduate life science students consented to participate in focus groups. The majority were first- and second-year students, reflecting SomosSTEM’s emphasis on early-college experiences. Demographics mirrored NMHU’s diverse student body, with most participants identifying as Hispanic/Latina/o/x, American Indian, or from other racially minoritized groups. This composition provided a strong basis for examining how humanizing practices shaped students’ belonging, self-efficacy, and science identity in the context of recurring crises.

4.2. Faculty and Program Data Sources

In addition to student participants, the study incorporated faculty and program-level evidence. The biology and forestry faculty who implemented SomosSTEM activities were co-principal investigators and collaborators, and thus were not interviewed as research participants. Instead, we collaboratively analyzed their practices through project documentation such as meeting agendas, grant reports, training materials, and internal correspondence, and records of joint planning sessions (see Table S1: Overview of Data Sources). These materials provided insight into how faculty adapted program structures and enacted humanizing practices during successive crises.

4.3. Data Collection

This qualitative case study design (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2018) used multiple forms of data to capture the layered dynamics of the SomosSTEM program between 2020 and 2024. Student perspectives were collected through annual semi-structured focus groups (n = 47 participants across four years), supplemented by surveys and written reflections. Focus groups explored how students experienced faculty interactions and how program activities supported their psychosocial development, including belonging, self-efficacy, and science identity. Sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and typically lasted 60–75 min. Faculty and program-level evidence included project documentation (e.g., internal meeting agendas, reports to funders, correspondence, training materials, and evaluation summaries) as well as records of ongoing collaboration among the project team. These documents captured how faculty and staff adapted curricular structures, revised timelines, and created new opportunities in response to overlapping crises. Institutional archival records—such as campus closure notices, emergency communications, and policy updates—were also reviewed to situate the program’s adaptations in broader institutional context.

4.4. Data Analysis

Data analysis followed an iterative, reflexive thematic approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019; Miles et al., 2014), guided by principles of collaborative inquiry (Bray et al., 2000; Heron & Reason, 2001). The first wave of analysis focused on student focus groups, surveys, and reflections. Open coding generated descriptive categories (e.g., faculty care, disrupted labs, community responsibility, resilience through adaptation), which were then refined into broader interpretive themes guided by the frameworks of humanizing STEM education (Rendón, 2009) and the CECE model (Museus, 2014).
A second wave of analysis unpacked the practices of biology and forestry faculty who carried out all SomosSTEM activities. Collaborative inquiry sessions with faculty partners provided spaces to interrogate emergent themes, test alternative interpretations, and surface tensions between student and faculty perspectives. For example, students often described their experiences in relation to disruptions across semesters, while faculty emphasized the iterative programmatic revisions they made in response. Through reflection, the research team identified temporality as a central analytic category in understanding resilience. Throughout, reflexive journaling and analytic memos documented evolving interpretations and researcher positionalities (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

4.5. Trustworthiness

Several strategies enhanced the trustworthiness of the study. Credibility was supported by triangulation of data sources (student focus groups, surveys, program documentation, faculty collaboration records, and institutional archives) and prolonged engagement with the research site and program faculty (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Dependability was strengthened through systematic documentation of coding procedures, decision trails, and iterative refinements recorded in analytic memos (Miles et al., 2014). Confirmability was ensured through reflexive journaling and explicit acknowledgment of researcher positionalities (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Transferability was facilitated by providing thick, contextualized descriptions of the institutional setting, the SomosSTEM interventions, and the environmental disruptions that shaped the study. While the single-case design inherently limits generalizability (Yin, 2018), the findings offer insights into institutional resilience and humanizing STEM practices in rural, resource-constrained environments.

5. Findings

Over the four years of the SomosSTEM project, each academic cycle was marked by major environmental disruptions: (1) the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023), (2) catastrophic wildfires (2022), (3) a severe water contamination crisis (2022–2024), and (4) a chemical incident at NMHU (2024). Each crisis required program adjustments, testing the resilience and effectiveness of SomosSTEM’s humanizing practices. Despite the varied nature of these disruptions, a common thread emerged: students consistently identified supportive faculty interactions and institutional flexibility—hallmarks of a humanizing educational environment—as crucial to their academic persistence and success. The sections below describe each crisis’s impact and how SomosSTEM adapted its programmatic elements.

5.1. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2023)

The abrupt transition to remote instruction in spring 2020 posed significant challenges, especially for first-year students adapting to college life. Many reported heightened feelings of isolation, anxiety, and decreased motivation. Despite these obstacles, SomosSTEM’s established focus on community engagement and mentorship provided essential support during this period. Faculty adapted by converting CUREs into virtual formats. For example, Alicia, a biology student, recalled, “Due to COVID, we weren’t able to visit the nature reserve. Instead, we studied trees in our own backyards, taking pictures of the trees and plant life.” She praised her professor’s creativity in sustaining curricular integrity despite remote constraints. Faculty also provided emotional support through virtual office hours, informal check-ins, and new online cohort support channels. Daniela, a first-year student, shared, “Professor Mendez frequently checked on my personal goals and emotional well-being. He’s really invested in his students… they genuinely care and make me feel at home even though I’m far away.” Tina, a sophomore, reflected, “During the pandemic, it was hard to feel that anyone cared… so it was nice to be reached out to.” These humanizing gestures—converting labs for backyard science, maintaining open communication, and validating students’ struggles—aligned with culturally responsive pedagogies that emphasize compassion and belonging as anchors of persistence during crises.

5.2. Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Wildfire (2022)

In spring 2022, the catastrophic Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon wildfires severely impacted northern New Mexico, causing trauma, displacement, and a two-week campus shutdown. SomosSTEM experienced major disruptions to summer programming, yet faculty and staff proactively redesigned activities and supported students through relief efforts, logistical flexibility, and trauma-informed curriculum adaptations. The Summer Science Challenge Academy, originally scheduled for May, was canceled due to fire-related evacuations. Faculty replaced it with a service-learning post-fire restoration project where students harvested and donated seeds to landowners impacted by fire. Internship placements were also reshaped. When the state division of forestry could not host students during wildfire recovery, faculty secured opportunities with the Hermit’s Peak Watershed Alliance and U.S. Forest Service. Students described the relevance of these adaptations. Marissa, a biology major, explained, “With the fires happening, there’s a real need for forest management.” Theo reflected, “We interviewed local landowners impacted by wildfires. Doing macroinvertebrate studies and beaver surveys allowed us to understand ecosystem restoration hands-on.” Gabriel, who volunteered as a firefighter, said that his training in SomosSTEM gave him skills useful “for fighting fires, or anything really in life.”
Evaluation reports confirmed that the program maintained momentum despite setbacks, crediting faculty leadership and the “relentless pursuit” of opportunities for student engagement. These adaptations demonstrated how a place-based, humanizing pedagogical commitment and multifaceted plan served as a meaningful lens or anchor to transform ecological trauma into an opportunity for students to strengthen science identity and deepen commitments to community resilience.

5.3. Flooding and Water Contamination Crisis (2022–2024)

Following the 2022 wildfires, severe flooding contaminated Las Vegas’s primary municipal water source, delaying NMHU’s fall semester and creating a public health emergency. Faculty adapted quickly, shifting CUREs and labs to analyze local water-quality data and embedding crisis response into coursework. Students themselves took initiative, including a group with many SomosSTEM-affiliated students that launched a campus-wide water conservation campaign that extended into local schools and policy discussions. Theo, a student leader, explained how they reached “A lot of students [who] weren’t aware of the situation.” Emma described how the experience fueled her motivation: “Knowing the situation we are in and what we can do to help motivates me. Connecting class to community gave me a sense of purpose beyond grades.” Faculty demonstrated empathy for students juggling household responsibilities during the crisis, extending deadlines and providing flexibility to sustain retention even as NMHU enrollment overall declined. For students, this combination of curricular relevance and institutional flexibility reinforced psychosocial development. The crisis also catalyzed real-world science identity: students saw themselves as not only learners but also contributors to community health and resilience.

5.4. Chemical Incident at NMHU (2024)

In September 2024, a hazardous chemical leak triggered an emergency evacuation and shutdown of NMHU’s Ivan Hilton Science Building by local fire authorities, sealing off every lab and office for more than four months and leaving classes, offices, labs, experiments and other research abruptly stranded until the building finally reopened in January 2025. Meanwhile, the closure generated a deeply personal toll, forcing people to navigate adverse health symptoms, loss, and lingering doubts about safety while trying to keep teaching and research moving forward in ad hoc workspaces. Once again, SomosSTEM faculty restructured teaching. Alternate lab spaces were arranged, remote work options introduced, and deadlines extended. Faculty check-ins became more frequent, ensuring students felt supported rather than penalized for disruptions beyond their control. For many students, these gestures reinforced trust. One explained, “They didn’t just expect us to go on like nothing happened. They asked how we were doing, gave us time, and still made sure we stayed on track.” The institutional message was clear: students were valued members of the academic community, even amidst chaos.
Taken together, these episodes illustrate the scale and persistence of disruption that faculty, staff, and students faced throughout the project. More importantly, they give rise to an unfolding record of how pedagogical care and flexibility took shape as the SomosSTEM team weathered conditions of such ongoing instability. Table 1 presents the principal cross-cutting themes that synthesize the mechanisms through which supportive practices sustained student persistence, highlighting not only what was done but how resilience was cultivated in practice.

5.5. The Relational Dimension of Humanizing Education

Across crises, a consistent pattern emerged: students linked their resilience to humanizing faculty interactions. Elise praised, “Dr. Rivas genuinely cared. She didn’t just lecture but actively engaged us, making content relevant, hands-on, and meaningful.” Corbin emphasized how personalized communication fostered solidarity: “They really cared about what my goals and dreams are. That’s why we kept going through everything.” Project records documented repeated redesigns of program activities to meet evolving student needs, whether reconfiguring internships or expanding partnerships to include hospitals and national labs. These practices aligned with validation theory (Rendón, 2009) and extended the culturally engaging campus environments model (Museus, 2014) to encompass adaptation under ecological and institutional crisis.

5.6. From Pedagogical Flexibility to Institutional Resilience

Across four consecutive crises, SomosSTEM students consistently identified humanizing, community-oriented practices as critical to their academic and personal resilience. Whether confronting a global pandemic, catastrophic wildfires, water contamination, or chemical incidents, students emphasized faculty empathy, curricular flexibility, and culturally responsive pedagogies as central to their sustained success. Importantly, students themselves noted these practices were most effective when embedded as consistent institutional norms rather than reserved for emergencies. The experiences documented through SomosSTEM underscore the necessity of embedding culturally responsive, empathetic, and place-based practices into everyday educational routines. Purposeful planning of a multifaceted approach rooted in these principles created coherence despite disruption and adaptation. Such practices, then, show promise for good educational practice during stable and predictable periods; but more importantly in this case, their core logics rooted in a humanizing approach proved to be essential for cultivating institutional resilience and student success amid ongoing environmental and public health crises that unfolded in this rural and historically marginalized community.

6. Discussion

The experiences documented at NMHU through the SomosSTEM program demonstrate how humanizing educational practices can sustain student resilience in the face of escalating environmental disruptions. Across four years, students and faculty navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, catastrophic wildfires, prolonged flooding and water contamination, and a chemical spill. Although these disruptions could be seen as rare in their breadth and back-to-back occurrence, scholars increasingly argue that higher education must prepare for similarly compounding crises as the effects of climate change intensify and intersect with existing inequities (Alexander, 2023; Berwyn, 2024; Fazey et al., 2021; Stein, 2023; Urbanski et al., 2022). Findings from this case study provide insight into how culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and ecologically grounded pedagogies can become foundational strategies for human and institutional resilience.

6.1. Humanizing Practices as Anchors of Resilience

A critical finding was the central role of faculty in sustaining student persistence by demonstrating empathy, flexibility, and care. Students consistently emphasized that supportive faculty interactions and institutional flexibility were pivotal to their academic success during each crisis. Faculty not only adapted curriculum but also engaged in emotional labor, validating students’ lived experiences and affirming their capacity to succeed despite disruption. These findings extend validation theory (Rendón, 2009) and the culturally engaging campus environments model (Museus, 2014; Museus et al., 2017) by illustrating how institutional affirmation and relational care operate most powerfully in times of crisis and when pursued through a cohesive and purposeful-built set of complementary components attending to students’ whole selves. They powerfully underscore the findings of research on humanizing STEM instruction during COVID-19, which highlights compassion as a necessary anchor of student persistence (Cooper et al., 2020; Sedlacek et al., 2023).

6.2. Place-Based and Community-Responsive Pedagogies

This study also illustrates the transformative potential of place-based education. During the 2022 wildfires, faculty redesigned activities to focus on ecosystem restoration and fire recovery, enabling students to contribute to community resilience while reinforcing their science identities. Similarly, during the water contamination crisis, faculty embedded authentic public health challenges into CUREs and students initiated peer-education campaigns on conservation. These experiences reflect trauma-informed, place-based approaches that explicitly connect learning to ecological and community realities (Ardoin et al., 2013; Ballard et al., 2017; Gruenewald & Smith, 2014), revealing how the values and vision of the SomosSTEM model fostered agency among faculty and students alike in the face of calamity. Arguably, such approaches also align with calls for bringing to bear environmental justice frameworks in educational practice that recognize the interdependence of human and ecological systems (Whyte, 2016; Schlosberg, 2012; A. M. Wells, 2017). The SomosSTEM experience illustrates how these principles were more than abstract ideals, but instead enacted realities that followed from the undergirding philosophy and approach established from the outset. They took shape in the practical world of teaching, learning, and honoring commitments to students and communities.
In this way, the findings illustrate that resilience within SomosSTEM was not a one-time response to disruption but a repeated cycle of adaptation and renewal. Students described their experiences across semesters in relation to unfolding crises, while faculty highlighted the programmatic adjustments they made year after year to sustain student engagement. These accounts show that resilience emerged through continual negotiation and redesign rather than isolated responses.

6.3. Implications for HSIs and Institutional Resilience

As a rural HSI, NMHU provides an important counter-narrative to deficit framings of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). The SomosSTEM program leveraged bilingual communication, culturally responsive mentorship, and consistent emotional engagement to build resilience in ways that resource-intensive universities often overlook (Alcántara-Rubio et al., 2022; Garcia, 2017, 2021; Ro et al., 2024). These findings echo critiques of conventional institutional climate frameworks (Abrica & Hatch-Tocaimaza, 2019; Abrica et al., 2023), underscoring the need for multidimensional, transformational practices that integrate racial justice, equity, and environmental sustainability (Ahmed, 2004; L. D. Patton et al., 2019; Urbanski et al., 2022).
Crucially, students emphasized that humanizing practices were most impactful when they were embedded consistently, not reserved for emergencies. Sustained faculty flexibility, personalized communication, and genuine care dismantled hierarchical barriers and fostered solidarity. This reinforces research that stresses the importance of moving beyond performative commitments to equity and sustainability, embedding them as institutional norms (Ahmed, 2004; Diamond & Gomez, 2023; McCowan, 2023).

6.4. Toward Proactive Educational Transformation

The compounded crises experienced at NMHU are harbingers of what higher education institutions globally already and increasingly confront. In light of escalating and compounding socio-ecological crises, the findings of our study illuminate the observations of how colleges and universities cannot rely on reactive or narrowly tailored crisis management alone but must proactively embed resilience into pedagogy and operations. This includes investing in faculty professional development around culturally relevant, trauma-informed, and ecologically responsive teaching strategies (Andreotti, 2016; Museus & Wang, 2022; Stein et al., 2022). Rural HSIs, often marginalized in policy discussions, can serve as laboratories for innovative approaches to equity and resilience, leveraging their community ties and cultural assets.
For higher education broadly, the lessons of SomosSTEM underscore the value of embedding humanizing and justice-centered practices as institutional norms. Doing so supports persistence and prepares the collective campus community to respond to the escalating challenges of climate change. By embracing such reforms, higher education can position itself as a proactive agent of environmental justice, community resilience, and sustainable human futures (Stein, 2023; Sterling, 2021; Urbanski et al., 2022).

7. Conclusions

This paper presents a study on how a STEM program at a rural Hispanic-Serving Institution in New Mexico, known as SomosSTEM, fostered a supportive educational setting amidst a series of overlapping natural disasters between 2020 and 2024. The research explores the program’s culturally responsive and research-intensive approaches for undergraduate life science students at New Mexico Highlands University during the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires, water contamination, and a chemical leak. Findings highlight that SomosSTEM’s success in humanizing education relied on faculty and staff’s genuine care, commitment, and relationship-building, emphasizing the crucial link between learning environments and their physical contexts. The study advocates for a broader understanding of humanizing education that integrates justice, equity, and sustainability, especially for marginalized communities facing environmental crises.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/educsci15101362/s1, Table S1: Overview of Data Sources.

Author Contributions

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, E.J.A., D.K.H.-T., S.C.-R. and J.G.; methodology, E.J.A.; investigation, E.J.A., D.K.H.-T., S.C.-R. and J.G.; formal analysis, E.J.A. and D.K.H.-T.; data curation, E.J.A.; writing—original draft preparation, E.J.A., D.K.H.-T., S.C.-R. and J.G.; writing—review and editing, E.J.A. and D.K.H.-T.; supervision, S.C.-R.; project administration, S.C.-R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), grant number 1953487 (IUSE:HSI, DUE).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all student participants in accordance with approved IRB protocols at New Mexico Highlands University (#017-2019) and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (#20201020631EX) on 8 October 2020.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. This paper contains no identifying information of participants. Participant names are pseudonyms to protect participant privacy and data confidentiality.

Data Availability Statement

Data supporting reported results is not publicly available.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

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Table 1. Patterns of Adaptation and Care in SomosSTEM.
Table 1. Patterns of Adaptation and Care in SomosSTEM.
Theme/Analytic CodeShort Explanation
Humanizing Practices by Faculty/Staff (incl. Institutional Care Messaging, Trauma-Informed Pedagogy)Faculty demonstrated empathy, flexibility, and validation through care, emotional support, and consistent communication, often framed as trauma-informed responses.
Structural Adaptations (incl. Resource Mobilization, aspects of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy)Faculty and staff restructured labs, internships, and coursework, mobilized alternative resources, and revised deadlines/programming in response to crises.
Place-Based Crisis Integration (incl. Community-Responsive Partnerships)Learning activities directly incorporated ecological crises and community needs, creating authentic, locally grounded science experiences.
Cycles of Adaptation & RenewalResilience emerged not as one-off adjustments but through repeated cycles of redesign across semesters and crises.
Student Leadership & AgencyStudents took initiative in outreach, activism, and applying STEM knowledge to local recovery and advocacy efforts.
Equity & Justice OrientationFindings emphasize that resilience and humanizing practices must be understood through equity and environmental justice commitments, especially at rural HSIs.
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Abrica, E.J.; Hatch-Tocaimaza, D.K.; Corey-Rivas, S.; Garcia, J. Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico. Educ. Sci. 2025, 15, 1362. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15101362

AMA Style

Abrica EJ, Hatch-Tocaimaza DK, Corey-Rivas S, Garcia J. Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico. Education Sciences. 2025; 15(10):1362. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15101362

Chicago/Turabian Style

Abrica, Elvira J., Deryl K. Hatch-Tocaimaza, Sarah Corey-Rivas, and Justine Garcia. 2025. "Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico" Education Sciences 15, no. 10: 1362. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15101362

APA Style

Abrica, E. J., Hatch-Tocaimaza, D. K., Corey-Rivas, S., & Garcia, J. (2025). Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises: A Case Study of a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in New Mexico. Education Sciences, 15(10), 1362. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15101362

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