2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

GIFTS: Framing Understanding Implicit Bias as a Professional Skill to First-Year Students

Presented at First-Year Programs Division (FYP) - GIFTS

One of the challenges in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is demonstrating the value to those who may not recognize the relevance to their professional life. In response to this challenge, we have used one class period in a first-year orientation course to introduce implicit bias. To avoid possible resistance to a DEI topic, the session is framed as a professional skills topic and starts with presentation of ABET student outcomes and NACE career-ready competencies. After review of outcomes and competencies, students are asked to reflect on the competencies they are most confident in at this stage of their education and then assess the competencies needed when developing a new product. This is followed by a discussion of some engineering products that have failed because the needs of particular populations had not been considered, which sets up a discussion of implicit bias as contributing to these failures. The focus is on demonstrating that we all have implicit biases because of the way the human brain works, but we need to be aware of them so that they do not impact our judgments and actions. It also introduces students early in their engineering academic experience to the concept of designing a product, process, or infrastructure that can serve the needs and interests of a wide variety of populations.

Authors

Dr. Jeffrey W. Fergus P.E. http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-8067-1992 Auburn University [biography]

Jeffrey W. Fergus received his B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1985 and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Notre Dame, in 1992 he joined the Materials Engineering program at Auburn University, where he served for 32 years, the last 10 as an associate dean. He currently serves as Dean of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University.
Jessica Bowers Auburn University - Samuel Ginn College of Engineering [biography]

Jessica Bowers serves as the Manager for Career Development Content and Strategy in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering (SGCOE) at Auburn University. In August 2018, Jessica joined the SGCOE to support the launch of the Office of Career Development and Corporate Relations (CDCR), charged with providing career development and graduation outcome support for 6,300 undergraduate and graduate engineering students. She provided leadership and strategic direction for establishment of CDCR career development and coaching services; leading recruitment, staffing, and operation of the career coaching team to provide one-on-one career coaching, workshops and programs, class presentations, and print and electronic resources. In 2022, Jessica transitioned her role to focus on developing a framework and infrastructure of embedded career development content and outcomes at strategic intervals within the engineering student experience.

In 2020, Jessica joined the Inclusion and Diversity Committee within the SGCOE, consisting of faculty, staff, and students. Within that committee, she leads a task group responsible for the branding, exposure, and promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the college which launched the Engineer Together branding initiative in 2021. In 2022, the SGCOE awarded Jessica with the Leadership in Diversity Faculty / Staff Award in recognition of one faculty or staff member per year who serves as an advocate for diversity in engineering.

Prior to joining Auburn University, Jessica spent 4.5 years as an Assistant Director for Pre-Health and Law Advising at the University of Virginia. Prior to UVA, she provided academic advising at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville where she also completed her master of science in college student personnel. Jessica holds a bachelor of arts in organizational communications and psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

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