From De Facto To De Jure and Beyond. It’s More Than Just Weather. What The “Chilly” Climate Really Feels Like for Black Doctoral Students in STEM

The STEM culture has long been described as "chilly," which ambiguously describes the lived reality for Black members of our academic communities. This paper provides current (e.g., pseudo-post COVID-19 pandemic, pseudo-post Donald Trump presidency, and pseudo-post the country's racial reckoning initiated in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd) and operationalization of the "chilly" climate descriptor and its impact on the lived experiences of Black doctoral students. We report on findings from interviews with n = 4 Black doctoral students in STEM, two who attend Traditionally White Institutions (TWIs), and two who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Reported in this paper is a thematic analysis of their descriptions of their " chilly" institutional department / climate. Two themes are described. The first discusses what other students receive that Black doctoral students did not receive, and the second discusses experiences that Black doctoral students endured (e.g., invisible labor, inequitable distribution of financial resources) that other students did not. Our findings challenge institutions to acknowledge that Black doctoral students experience unique stressors and to respond to that awareness through institutional cultural shifts that transform STEM programs into spaces where Black students are supported, acknowledged, and celebrated.