2023 Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity (CoNECD)

The lack of equality in the traditional American educational system [1] combined with the changing demographics in the US [2] and the shift towards a technology driven society [3] poses an imminent threat to American innovation and global competitiveness, particularly in the field of engineering where the rest of the world is moving to more inclusive pedagogical models [4]. To improve inclusivity, a comprehensive assessment of undergraduate engineering student experiences at a midsize urban, diverse and predominantly white institution was conducted to perform a deep examination of the historical challenges faced by populations traditionally underrepresented that have negatively impacted engineering retention and graduation rates.

With particular interest in populations traditionally underrepresented, this work was performed to identify and reduce systemic barriers caused by subjective policies and practices, improve an institutional climate that disproportionately impacts students from disenfranchised communities, and collect more actionable data to improve the overall student experience. This research effort explored all of the college of engineering’s operations to identify biases in its systems and structures. The data spanned academic programs, enrollment, scholarships, career services, advising, first-year experiences, and a host of other student support mechanisms. Researchers developed and distributed topical surveys, conducted focus groups, and studied institutional data. Using research guided tools, researchers discovered that the very academic and enrollment policies and practices that were designed to be fair were actually impacting specific student populations inequitably.

In this talk, results from a climate survey (IRB HM20024224) will be presented along with discussion of relevant efforts developed to address systemic issues. Using REDCap, a 77-question voluntary climate survey was designed and distributed to all undergraduate students in the college of engineering. Students were not compensated for completing the survey, and nearly 25% of students participated as anonymous survey respondents (note: women responded at a higher rate than men). Results from the climate survey demonstrate disparities across gender, race, and majors in terms of services provided, opportunities presented, and academic support received. Most notably, women experience more bias, discrimination, and harassment; women feel less valued (by graduate assistants, peers); women feel they are treated less fairly and equitably; culture in and out of the classroom spaces are different; women are three times more likely to transfer out of engineering, and not all students felt encouraged by faculty to challenge ideas. By probing deeper and collecting qualitative and quantitative data, valuable insights were gained for improving experiences for women and populations traditionally underrepresented. In response to the survey, programs were subsequently developed to overcome systemic biases hampering student success and model better, more inclusive policies, practices and procedures.

[1] Gamoran, Adam, "American Schooling and Educational Inequality: A Forecast for the 21st Century," Sociology of Education, vol. 74, pp. 135-153, 2001.
[2] Vespa, Jonathan, Armstrong, David M, and Medina, Lauren, Demographic turning points for the United States: Population projections for 2020 to 2060: US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, US …, 2018.
[3] Montealegre, Ramiro and Cascio, Wayne F, "Technology-driven changes in work and employment," Communications of the ACM, vol. 60, pp. 60-67, 2017.
[4] Wall, Kevin, Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development: Unesco, 2010.