2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Research shows that teams with gender and racial diversity are highly effective when innovation and problem-solving are critical goals [1]. Despite a wealth of best practices published over the past several decades on how to broaden participation in engineering, and despite significant investments to increase diversity in the engineering workforce by the National Science Foundation, engineering industries, and universities, women currently comprise just 26% of all engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2023 [2]. Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) received 23% of undergraduate engineering degrees in 2023 [2], although they constitute 35% of the current U.S. population [3]. Women and BIPOC engineering students encounter complex barriers to retention and degree attainment, including campus climates that are not inclusive and inadequate student support programs at some institutions.

The vision of Engineering PLUS, a NSF Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Alliance [4] is to achieve transformative, systemic and sustainable change that will increase the growth in the number of BIPOC and women obtaining undergraduate/graduate engineering degrees to 100,000/30,000 by 2026 and establish a future growth rate that can substantially close the participation gaps. Addressing barriers to women and BIPOC participation in engineering will require changing the systems that hold current policies and practices in place.

In August of 2021, NSF provided $10 million in seed funding for 5 years. This Alliance is one of seventeen funded by NSF INCLUDES, a nationwide initiative designed to build U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics by enhancing the preparation, and participation of individuals from underrepresented groups in STEM. [redacted name] is the only INCLUDES Alliance that focuses primarily on engineering and 5 key strategies:

1. Partner with ASEE to develop a critical mass of institutional partners and leverage existing ASEE programs and initiatives.
2. Train, empower, resource and support a national network of institutional change agents through a professional development Academy who accelerate the implementation of high-impact, evidence-based practices within their home institutions and beyond.
3. Establish a network of regional Hubs that build on and expand NSF LSAMP Alliances and leverage partnerships with ASEE, GEM Consortium, NACME, NAMEPA, NSBE, AISES and other stakeholders.
4. Measure outcomes, engage in data-driven decision-making, and continuously optimize best practices through a multidisciplinary data team effort to support the data focused activities, research and evaluation of the Alliance.
5. Implement a sustainability strategy involving industry and key stakeholders to ensure the long-term vision and viability of the Alliance beyond the grant funding period.

Results and measurable outcomes to date including the success of our data team, Academy participants (70 faculty and administrators to date), the expansion of multiple regional Hubs (4 as of this writing), and our partnership with ASEE will be outlined in the forthcoming paper submission.

Acknowledgement

This work is funded by the National Science Foundation under award #2119930 NSF Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Alliance Engineering PLUS (Partnerships Launching Underrepresented Students). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

References

[1] S.E. Page, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

[2] Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds. [Accessed September 27, 2024].

[3] United States Census Bureau Quick Facts. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US. [Accessed September 27, 2024].

[4] Engineering PLUS, a NSF Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Alliance https://engplusalliance.northeastern.edu/ [Accessed September 27, 2024].