Dr. Afiyah Fredericks, research faculty member for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) & Psychological Well-being, recently served as a panelist at The Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities (APLU)- Commission on Information , Measurement & Analysis (CIMA) Summer Meeting. Panelists, in a session entitled Data Parties as Tools for Collective Insight and Strategic Clarity, shared lessons learned and practical strategies for designing data parties that center equity, build buy-in, and inform institutional decision-making. This panel session brought together colleagues from two Minority Serving Institutions to share how they have implemented “data parties” as a method for campus-wide engagement with institutional data. Rooted in the concept that everyone is a data person, data parties invite diverse stakeholders to collaboratively interpret findings and generate actionable insights.

Additionally, data parties are being used to engage HBCU faculty with findings from a large-scale study on the impact of faculty beliefs and instructional practices on student motivation and performance. The project gathered data from nearly 1,600 undergraduates across 64 STEM courses at 38 HBCUs, exploring how supportive growth mindset cultures—where mistakes are normalized and the process of learning is valued—affect student outcomes. Findings revealed that while instructor beliefs are important, their instructional practices are even more influential. To ensure contextual relevance, researchers held a faculty-facing data party that positioned HBCU instructors as co-analysts and expert sensemakers. A facilitated discussion will invite participants to consider how data parties could support collaborative, data-informed innovation on their own campuses.

Participating panelists included, Bonnie J. Becker, Ph.D., Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success, Associate Professor of Marine Ecology, University of Washington Tacoma;

Afiya C. Fredericks, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Morgan State University; Kali Trzesniewski, Ph.D., Professor of Extension, University of California Davis; Patrice Greene, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar; and Andrew Chamberlain, Institutional Research Analyst, University of Washington Tacoma.