2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

NSF EDA-Eng Diversity Activities: *** Asset Driven Equitable Partnerships (ADEP) Workshops – Sharing What Works (WIP)

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session II

The mission of the *** Consortium (***) is to enable Minority Serving Institution (MSI) Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) programs to produce more and better prepared graduates from groups that have been historically underrepresented in ECE careers. *** leadership hypothesizes that the key to achieving this goal is more fully engaging the students, staff and faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in the broad ECE education and research enterprise by building partnerships with Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), industry, government labs, etc. These partnerships must be equitable with all voices being heard and all relevant assets identified and utilized.

The equitable partnership concept came out of a series of *** workshops that addressed Anti-Racism Practices in Engineering. Since then, *** has been applying the ideas developed and collecting feedback, particularly on barriers to their effective use. Anti-Racism Practices in Engineering should apply to students, staff, and faculty in all activities in an ECE program. However, *** has focused on research because it is THE activity that is the most underdeveloped at most MSIs and the primary reason why PWIs usually contact MSIs. The most exciting and potentially impactful effort involves co-development and co-delivery of courses in support of students on pathways to research careers.

MSIs need investment to increase their research capacity and, thus, expand opportunities for their students. Personnel at PWIs must engage with their counterparts at MSIs so they will learn how to more effectively mentor and teach students from MSIs. Both types of institutions must invest in each other to achieve maximum benefit from the diversity of ideas, cultures, resources, etc. found at such different institutions. Equitable partners must be able to identify and articulate their assets and understand the assets of other participants. Finally, partnerships only work if there is sufficient trust, which comes from knowledge of and engagement with one another. The model for such partnerships is what *** calls ADEP – Asset Driven Equitable Partnerships.

ADEP principles have been developed and applied through additional workshops funded under this and other programs and developing partnerships. The partnerships take a variety of forms but generally involve either a small subset or all core *** MSI members plus some PWIs, with occasional industry or national lab participation. Recently, partnerships have been developed between core *** MSI members and their regional community colleges. There are also joint efforts with other non-profits and industry working to achieve similar outcomes. To guide these partnerships, the ADEP Rubric continues to be developed to identify what is helping or hindering the success of these collaborations. New proposals are being prepared and new programs begun. At the same time, the workshops that bring together as many *** members as possible, virtually, in person, and hybrid continue. There remain many barriers to be overcome, but the ever-evolving ADEP approach is working through the active exchange of ideas in the pursuit of common goals.

Authors

Dr. Kenneth A Connor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4216-763X Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

Kenneth Connor is Program Officer at the Inclusive Engineering Consortium (IEC), whose mission is to enable MSI ECE programs to produce more and better prepared graduates from groups that have been historically underrepresented in ECE careers. He is also an emeritus professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he taught courses on electromagnetics, electronics and instrumentation, plasma physics, electric power, and general engineering. His research involves plasma physics, electromagnetics, photonics, biomedical sensors, engineering education, diversity in the engineering workforce, and technology enhanced learning. He learned problem solving from his father (who ran a gray iron foundry), his mother (a nurse) and grandparents (dairy farmers). He has had the great good fortune to always work with amazing people, most recently the members and leadership of the IEC from HBCU, HSI, and TCU ECE programs and the faculty, staff and students of the Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) ERC, where he was Education Director until his retirement in 2018. He was RPI ECSE Department Head from 2001 to 2008 and served on the board of the ECE Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) from 2003 to 2008. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE.
Prof. Miguel Velez-Reyes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6983-7250 University of Texas at El Paso [biography]

Dr. Miguel Velez-Reyes is the George W. Edwards/El Paso Electric Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He also holds a joint appointment with Pacific Northwest National Laborary (PNNL) as a Senior Scientist.
Dr. Velez-Reyes is an accomplished educator, researcher and mentor. He is an experienced researcher in exploitation of remote sensing data for earth system science, defense and security, and space situational awareness. His research focuses on integrating physical, statistical, and machine-learning approaches for remote sensing signal analytics. His work is presented in over 180 publications in journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and has supervised over 60 post-doctoral, doctoral and master students. Dr. Velez-Reyes is a first generation in college student who received the BSEE degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM), in 1985, and the MSEE, the Electrical Eng. D., and the PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1988, 1988, and 1992 respectively. He chairs the SPIE Conference on Algorithms, Technologies and Applications for Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging. His technical achievements and service to the community have been recognized with the distinction of Fellow of SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) for his contributions to hyperspectral image processing, and Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Puerto Rico. In 1997, he was one of 60 recipients from across the United States and its territories of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House. He received the IEEE Walter Fee Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 1999. He is a board member of the Inclusive Engineering Consortium and an advocate to provide access to excellent education to students from underserved populations and foster social mobility of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. He is a life member of SHPE and SACNAS, and Senior Member of IEEE. He is also a member of AIAA, ASEE, and AGU.
Dr. John C. Kelly North Carolina A&T State University [biography]

Dr. John C. Kelly, Jr. is chair and associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delaware. Dr. Kellyâ€™s researc
Dr. Pamela Leigh-Mack Virginia State University [biography]

Dr. Pamela Leigh-Mack is Professor and Chair of the Department of Engineering at Virginia State University. She received the B.S. degree in Mathematics from Virginia Union University, B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering (EE) from Howard U
Dr. Barry J. Sullivan Electrical & Computer Engineering Department Heads Assn [biography]

Barry J. Sullivan is Director of Program Development for the Inclusive Engineering Consortium. His 40-year career includes significant experience as a researcher, educator, and executive in industry, academia, and the non-profit sector. He has developed
Elizabeth Hibbler Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration (CIEC)
Dr. Stephen M Goodnick Arizona State University
Dr. Shiny Abraham Seattle University [biography]

Shiny Abraham is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seattle University. She received the B.E. degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Visveswaraiah Technological University (VTU), India in 2007 and Ph.D. from Old Dominio
Michelle Klein Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. Heads Assoc. (ECEDHA)

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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