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Transforming science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate education requires embracing diversity for countless reasons, two being that diverse workplaces are more creative and productive than more homogenous environments and that they help to reduce inequalities (Phillips 2014). Although many initiatives to improve the participation of women and persons excluded because of ethnicity and race (PEERs; Asai 2020) in STEM have been tried and adopted, a number of hurdles and cultural biases in the field have slowed progress (Metcalf 2010, Phillips 2014, Kizilcec et al. 2023). Perhaps one of the biggest challenges lies in the continual use of the educational pipeline metaphor (Gregor et al. 2023). The pipeline metaphor has been at the core of recruitment and retention efforts for the past 40 years despite many criticisms and calls for its replacement (Metcalf 2010, Petray et al. 2019, Skrentny and Lewis 2022, Kizilcec et al. 2023). Indeed, it should be replaced because it implies a singular, rigid pathway with fixed dimensions leading to success in STEM.

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