2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

View from the Kaleidoscope: Conceptualizing antiracist priorities for engineering as a collective across vantages

Presented at Track 2: Technical Session 4: View from the Kaleidoscope: Conceptualizing antiracist priorities for engineering as a collective across vantages

In May, 2023 the RACIAL EQUITY CENTER NAME HERE (referred to as “the Center” hereafter) convened the inaugural meeting of its advisory board (AB). Twelve AB members, all with a demonstrated commitment to advancing racial equity within engineering were present. The AB was constructed with intentionality to include a variety of roles within the engineering educational ecosystem, a variety of racial / ethnic identities, a variety of sexuality identities, a variety of gender identities, and a variety of institutional homes. Professional roles represented by AB members in attendance at the meeting include: doctoral student, faculty at all ranks, college level administrator, university level administrator, entrepreneur, and nonprofit organization executive. Along with the AB members, four internal Center team members were in attendance: the Center’s founding executive director, associate director, and two graduate student team members.

The meeting spanned three days and had the following high level objectives: refine the Center priorities and initial activities, generate ideas for a sustainability plan that positions the Center to thrive financially at the end of its fifth year, generate ideas for a human infrastructure plan to support the center, and inform a plan and structure for continued engagement between the Center and the AB.

This paper will report on a subset of the meeting activities and outcomes as related to the refinement of the Center’s priorities. Specifically, the AB and Center team members collaboratively engaged in a structured process, designed to elucidate the group’s collective vision about the issues of greatest opportunity and urgency in creating an anti-racist and equitable future for engineering. The outcome of the experience yielded the following fourteen priorities and opportunities (listed in no particular order): 1) building empathy in engineers; 2) broadening influence on what engineers learn, do, and recognize as engineering problems; 3) decolonizing engineering values; 4)increasing equity, transparency, and accountability in academic / university policies; 5) making the invisible (labor, time, harm, etc.) of Black engineers and engineering scholars visible; 6) removing the perceived threat of equity; 7) recognizing the harm of technological innovation; 8) changing the conversation (messaging) about engineering...again; 9) engagement as a pathway across the lifespan of an engineer; 10) rethinking assessment; 11) valuing reproducibility as a key component of equity-driven innovations; 12) removing money as an impediment to engineering graduate studies; 13) requiring equity as standard and required learning for everyone within the engineering ecosystem; and 14) normalizing wellness as a fundamental right for engineering scholars.

The full paper will include details around the process used to generate the fourteen opportunity and priority areas as well as a detailed description of each of the opportunities and priorities themselves. Our intention in sharing the outcome of this activity at CoNECD is to move beyond these priorities to solely inform the activities of the Center. We wish to share the emergent opportunities and priorities toward serving as a resource for other equity-focused scholars and practitioners desiring to impact transformative change in their respective institutions.

Authors

Dr. Brooke Charae Coley Arizona State University [biography]

Brooke C. Coley, Ph.D. is Founding Executive Director of the Center for Research Advancing Racial Equity, Justice, and Sociotechnical Innovation Centered in Engineering (RARE JUSTICE)—an unprecedented testbed for innovating and modeling antiracist and equitable engineering futures—and Assistant Professor of Engineering, both at Arizona State University. Across several national projects funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, Dr. Coley’s research lies at the intersection of racial equity, mental health and qualitative research methods encompassing critical theory, participatory action research, and arts-based research methods. Her work is anchored in an intentional amplification of the voices of minoritized populations in STEM with the goal of informing disruption of the pervasive systemic inequities found in racialized organizations such as institutions of higher learning. Leveraging the outcomes of this work, Dr. Coley will continue to create exemplars of equity in action across realms of the academic enterprise—lived experience and restorative justice, scholarship generation and metrics, and rewards systems and structures. Dr. Coley recently received the 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering for her commitment to creating and fostering a diverse and inclusive environment. Dr. Coley earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Bioengineering with a concentration in Biomechanics from the University of Pittsburgh. She also completed her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County as a Meyherhoff Scholar.
Dr. Alaine M Allen Carnegie Mellon University [biography]

Dr. Alaine M. Allen is an educator who intentionally works to uplift the voices of and create opportunities for individuals from groups historically marginalized in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) environments. She currently serve
Dr. Sharnnia Artis George Mason University [biography]

Dr. Sharnnia Artis is the Assistant Dean of Access and Inclusion for the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She is responsible for programs at the pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate levels to facilitate the recruitment, retention, and overall success of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering and information and computer sciences. Dr. Artis has 18 years of experience working with education and outreach programs in engineering and over 35 publications in STEM education and outreach. Prior to joining UC Irvine, she was the Education and Outreach Director for the Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, Dr. Artis spent nine years at Virginia Tech providing program and student support for the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity and has four years of industry and government experience as a Human Factors Engineer. Dr. Artis holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Dr. Jennifer M Bekki Arizona State University, Polytechnic Campus [biography]

Jennifer M. Bekki is an Associate Professor within The Fulton Schools of Engineering. Her research aims to understand and address inequities arising from racism and sexism within STEM graduate education.
Khalid Kadir University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Meagan C Pollock Engineer Inclusion [biography]

As an engineer turned educator, through her company, Engineer Inclusion, Dr. Meagan Pollock focuses on helping others intentionally engineer inclusion™ in education and the workforce.
Dr. Renetta Garrison Tull http://orcid.org/https://0009-0009-7197-5212 University of California, Davis
Dr. Linda Vanasupa Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering [biography]

Linda Vanasupa is professor of materials engineering at Olin College. She also served as a professor at the California Polytechnic State University for 27 years. Her life's work is focused on creating ways of learning engineering that honors the whole.
Dr. Rochelle L Williams Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity [biography]

Rochelle L. Williams, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity and the Adjunct Director of Research for the National Society of Black Engineers. She is a former Chair of the MIND Division and ASEE Projects Board.
Haley R. Hatfield University of Georgia
Dr. Ebony Omotola McGee The Johns Hopkins University

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