2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As part of the National Science Foundation’s XXX program, the new YYY Alliance seeks to strengthen and expand the future United States engineering workforce by supporting the recruitment and persistence of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and female students in engineering. To accomplish this, we seek to accelerate the development and implementation of evidenced-based interventions through the initiation and support of a professional learning community of “ZZZ” fellows, who will be equipped to design, implement, and assess evidence-based and inclusive practices at their respective institutions. Our overall mission is to lead transformative, systemic and sustainable change that increases the growth rate in the number of BIPOC and women pursuing engineering by 2026. The YYY Alliance was designed to leverage the wealth of best practices from established research to provide the collaborative infrastructure needed to support sustainability and scale-up of successful strategies.

Engineering-affiliated faculty and administrator applicants were recruited from post-secondary institutions across the country to answer the questions: “What is one evidence-based strategy or program that you believe has the potential to be most beneficial for women and BIPOC engineering students? and "How could you implement this strategy at your own institution?" Completed applications also required the support of applicants’ institutional leadership. Seventeen (17) fellows were finally selected for the first cohort.

Beginning in the summer 2022 during a week-long virtual convening, Academy participants explored topics including the engineering education pathway landscape and evidence-based strategies that work for women and BIPOC students, all with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Workshop sessions on institutional data, student retention, resources (publications and professional societies), institutional change, first year engineering programs, Summer Bridge programs, women in engineering programs, funding, and writing program proposals were facilitated by the principal investigators and invited speakers. For evaluation purposes, fellows’ expectations and experiences were assessed immediately after the summer Academy with a brief qualitative and quantitative survey. This survey focused on their backgrounds and experiences in engineering education, their motivations for attending the Academy, overall satisfaction, future plans, their ratings for each workshop session, suggestions for improving future Academies, and additional resources needed from Academy leaders for their future work.

Results showed that the fellows found their Academy experience to be generally positive and that it delivered on promises regarding knowledge and skills. Fellows expressed a high degree of passion for DEI in STEM education and attended the academy primarily because of their interest in learning more about high-impact practices and how to apply them in their setting. When describing the most impactful elements of the Academy, respondents talked primarily about the value of collaborating with colleagues, as well as receiving concrete advice from the Academy mentors on how to begin their own efforts. For approximately half of the fellows, their next step was sharing information with others at their institution about their prospective projects and gaining buy-in, while the other half were prepared to take immediate and concrete action on their projects, some of which are explained in this paper.