2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Keywords: faculty, engineering,
In recent years many universities have established initiatives specifically dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) on their campuses, including X University's establishment of the Division of Diversity Equity and Inclusion in 2018. However, little is known about how faculty perceive DEIJ issues in the context of their academic disciplines. This understanding is critical to ensuring that students from all backgrounds are appropriately supported in pursuing their degrees. In this pilot project, researchers from X University’s College of Engineering and College of Education answered the following research questions: (1) What level of relevance do faculty members place on DEIJ as part of their degree program curriculum? and (2) How do faculty members’ conceptions of DEIJ compare across disciplines? The College of Engineering was chosen as a pilot site due to the engineering discipline’s long-standing challenge with recruiting and retaining diverse students and faculty and the role of practicing engineers in developing technologies for all people. The College of Education was chosen due to its role in training the next generation of K-12 educators, administrators, higher education leaders and other education professionals who will be charged with educating and supporting diverse student populations.

To answer the two research questions, faculty members in each of the colleges of interest who agreed to participate in the research study – 11 from the College of Engineering and 15 from the College of Education – were asked to create concept maps of their degree program’s curricula after attending a workshop on incorporating concept maps in the classroom. Concept maps are a pedagogical and research tool that allow for assessment of an individual’s perception of a given topic that can be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The concept maps created by the participants in this study revealed not only what (if any) DEIJ concepts individual faculty members associated with their curricula, but also how these concepts fit in with their perceptions of their field of study. The findings of this study suggest not only that faculty members from the College of Education were more likely to associate DEIJ concepts and terminology with their curricula than faculty members from the College of Engineering, but also that the types of DEIJ concepts prioritized by the participants differed depending on their discipline.

This study provides a baseline understanding of how faculty in two X University colleges integrate DEIJ concepts with their pedagogy and curriculum. In the future, these results can inform the creation of professional development programs to enhance faculty member’s ability to foster classroom spaces and curricular materials that have DEIJ as a foundation.These intentionally-focused classroom environments will benefit all students, but particularly marginalized students.