Science, Technology, and Society Equity Resources

The Science, Technology, & Society (STS) program fosters a close-knit community of students, faculty, and staff with diverse areas of expertise and interests. The program provides students from across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences with the opportunity to explore themes of EDI in studies of science and technology.

Given its nature as an interdisciplinary program, STS courses investigate a diverse range of beliefs, historical contexts, and actors from multiple perspectives. Our classrooms are committed to providing an equitable, respectful, and rewarding venue for discussion and scholarship.

STS Internship Program

The STS Internship Program provides upper-year STS students with the opportunity to get hands-on interdisciplinary experience and use their expertise to create impacts in venues outside of the university. We have a number of partners that deal directly with issues of accessibility, equity, and inclusion. For 2023–2024:

• The Toronto French School internship allows students to tutor high school students from over forty different countries at a bilingual institution. Interns have the opportunity to design lessons and learning activities for the Theory of Knowledge course and lead discussion seminars, encouraging an appreciation of cultural diversity and helping young scholars reach their potentials.
• At the Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities, interns participate in Community Based Research to help the mental, physical, and communal health of Scarborough residents. Students make a lasting impact by working with health care providers and administrators to improve the accessibility of and equity in local healthcare.
• The International Network for Governmental Science Advice is an NGO that connects researchers and policy-makers around the world to improve and elucidate science policy globally. Students interning at the North American branch work to develop training modules for members of the International Science Council that forefront sustainable and equitable science policy.

HPS/STS Mentorship Program

The HPS/STS Mentorship program pairs undergraduate HPS and STS students with graduate students and program alumni to provide mentorship on academia, work-life balance, research, and life beyond the university. Mentors work and study in a variety of professions, ensuring that undergraduate students find guidance from mentors with similar interests. In addition to one-on-one mentoring, the program also hosts meet-and-greets for all mentors and mentees, providing an opportunity for undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni to connect in a welcoming environment.

History & Philosophy of Science & Technology Undergraduate Society (HPSUS)

The Undergraduate Society for the HPS program also represents STS students. The society hosts several events throughout the year, including meet-and-greets, lectures, seminars, and an annual international conference on Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society. These events help connect members of the STS and HPS community, creating venues for open and respectful discussion and exploration. The conference in particular invites undergraduate students from around the world to share their research on issues related to STS and EDI, with past presentations including:

• “Evaluating Strategies to Improve Navigation of the US Health System for Limited English Proficiency Patients”
• “Modern Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine”
• “Evolutionary Theory as a Crutch: Involuntary Sterilization in Canada”
• “Advertising Audism in America: From Home Tonics to Cochlear Implants”

The society also represents STS students' interests and concerns, and is an avenue that students can use for advocation and expression.

Students in the STS program have the opportunity to enrol in courses from a variety of other programs, including Creativity and Society, Renaissance Studies, and History and Philosophy of Science and Technology which ensures that they are exposed to a great variety of complementary perspectives on diverse subjects. Courses that deal directly with themes of EDI include:

HPS200 - Science and Values

• Topics include: scientific authority and power, the influence of social values on science, the effects of scientific and technological research on social values.

REN242 - Scientific Worldviews of the Renaissance

• Topics include: development of Islamic natural philosophy and its role in shaping the Rennaisance worldview.

REN343 - Sex and Gender

• Topics include: gender and sexuality in early modern Europe, same-sex friendship and intimacy, history of sexuality.

HPS205 - Science, Technology, and Empire

• Topics include: science in imperial contexts, race science and anthropology, colonial and indigenous science.

HPS324 - Natural Sciences and Social Issues

• Topics include: interactions of science with political issues, impacts of science on social issues.

HPS331 - Global History of Mapping Sciences

• Topics include: maps and colonialism, power dynamics, worldmaking, imposing boundaries, imperialism, and capitalism.

HPS351 - Biomedical Sciences and Technologies in Global Society

• Topics include: animal studies and synthetic life forms, biomedical sciences in the Middle East, Africa, and East and South Asia.

HPS354 - History of Medicine and Public Health in the Middle East

• Topics include: Middle East as a contact zone of medical traditions and a key site in the emergence of colonial medicine, construction of colonial and postcolonial medical schools and hospitals.

HPS442 - Sciences of Whiteness in the Middle East & Its Diasporas

• Topics include, Middle Eastern discourses of race and ethnicity, racial classification and hierarchy in Islamicate and European imperial contexts, nationalist ideologies and race science, migrant experiences.

HPS444 - Health, Medicine, and Society in the Mediterranean World

• Topics include: women healers and patients, history of medical conceptions of disabilities, creation of ideas of sex and gender through medical theories.