2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Despite significant investments by government agencies, universities, foundations, and industries that rely on the skills and talents of engineers, Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) and women are underrepresented in the engineering workforce. Engineering depends on team collaboration, and research shows that diverse groups are typically more effective than homogeneous teams when complex problem solving are critical goals.

The U.S. must educate a diverse engineering workforce to address the complex technological challenges faced by our society. Greater diversity in the STEM workforce will result in a new generation of engineering talent and leadership to secure our nation’s future and long-term competitiveness. While there has been progress in increasing the number and percent of women and BIPOC graduates since 2011, engineering is still a discipline graduating predominantly male students. BIPOC students historically drop off the engineering pipeline at key transition points (see graph below) – they receive only 6% of engineering Ph.Ds. Women are also underrepresented among graduate degree recipients.

As a community of educators and professional engineers, we are not addressing the problem systemically, i.e., we are not addressing the root causes that are 90% of the problem. Moreover, our current efforts to broaden participation in engineering fail to consistently leverage evidence-based, high-impact practices and redress obstacles, all of which are necessary to catalyze institutional change at scale.

The Engineering PLUS Alliance, funded at $10 million over 5 years, is one of 17 National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES Alliances of higher education institutions and the only Alliance focused on engineering. NSF INCLUDES is a nationwide initiative designed to build U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by increasing the participation of individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. The xxx Alliance posits that networked communities are needed to build an inclusive infrastructure that will drive the transformative, systemic and sustainable change needed to achieve 100K undergraduate and 30k graduate engineering degrees awarded annually to BIPOC and women students by 2026. 
The Engineering PLUS Alliance is built around the following key performance strategies:
1. Implement a collaborative infrastructure “backbone” informed by the 3-level NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERC) model.
2. Partner with The GEM Consortium, NACME, ASEE, NAMEPA, ARIS, other NSF INCLUDES Alliances (STEM PUSH), the NSF INCLUDES National Network, and Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (NELSAMP, UMLSAMP). 
3. Establish a network of regional Hubs that builds on and expands NSF LSAMP Alliances. Members of regional hubs (institutions of higher education), will learn about the high-impact practices that are successful in increasing diversity in engineering education. The hubs will be the engines of national institutional change.  
4. Train, empower & support a national network of stEm PEERs (Practitioners Enhancing Engineering Regionally) change agents who will accelerate the implementation of evidence-based practices and sustain institutional buy-in within their home institutions and beyond. 
5. Implement a sustainability strategy by recruiting a national Advisory board of thought leaders from industry, academia, government, and society, who will also support fundraising. 
6. Create a continuous improvement data, evaluation & research effort.

Currently, in the 2nd year of this grant effort, our first cohort of stEm PEERS has been formed, and two regional HUBs have been established working in concert with synergistic funded efforts. Additionally, partnerships with national organizations informs and strengthens our strategic efforts. This poster outlines this broad initiative and summarizes plans as well as efforts to date.