2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Organizational Transformation for Graduate Education: Intentionally Engaging Graduate Students as Partners in Equity Work

Presented at Track 3: Technical Session 6: Organizational Transformation for Graduate Education: Intentionally Engaging Graduate Students as Partners in Equity Work

Greater attention has recently been put towards improving the experiences of people from marginalized groups pursuing graduate degrees in engineering. In response to a call from the National Science Foundation to establish a center for equity in engineering, a collective, named PROTEGE, focused on organizational change at the graduate level is being established. One of the guiding principles for PROTEGE is to empower graduate students. This principle is motivated by community engagement, where by involving community members in the decision-making and outcome-production process, they can feel more invested in the results of the work and feel a sense of ownership in the outcomes of the initiatives. However, PROTEGE recognizes the tension between not wanting to overburden marginalized students and needing to have their involvement according to the principles of community engagement. Advancing equity work regularly comes at the expense of graduate students themselves, especially those that come from marginalized communities. Equity work and the emotional burdens produced by doing said work often go unnoticed and uncompensated within academia. The purpose of this paper is to present the initial plans for exploring how to shift more power to graduate students through community engagement so that graduate students will have a voice within PROTEGE.

Authors

Ms. Julia Machele Brisbane http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-9580-0646 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Julia Brisbane is a Ph.D. student in the Engineering Education Department at Virginia Tech. She received her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences Engineering and her B.S. in Bioengineering from Clemson University. Her research interests lie in undergraduate research experiences in engineering, racial health disparities, and broadening participation in engineering.
Teirra K Holloman Virginia Tech Department of Engineering Education [biography]

Teirra Holloman is a postdoctoral associate in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Teirra received her Ph.D. in Engineering Education and M.Eng. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech and her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University. Her research interests include organizational resilience; organizational change; diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in engineering and global education programs.
Natali Huggins Virginia Tech [biography]

Dr. Natali Huggins is a Research Scientist in the Engineering Education Department at Virginia Tech. She holds a master's in public administration from the National Experimental University of Táchira in Venezuela. In addition, she has several years of experience in research and practice at graduate education level in the engineering field, with special focus on assess based perspectives, minoritized students’ socialization, and agency in graduate education. Her strengths include qualitative research study design and implementation. Her dissertation examined Latinx motivation to pursue Ph.D. in engineering, minoritized engineering doctoral students’ socialization and the impact of the engineering context in their experiences. Her research expertise lies in diversity and inclusion in graduate education, with a particular interest in minoritized students' socialization, the engineering context, and the best ways to support students' persistence to degree completion.
Dr. Walter C. Lee http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-1411 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Walter Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education and the director for research at the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED), both at Virginia Tech.

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