2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper is a Research Paper.

The demand for inclusive and equitable teaching practices in engineering education continues to grow, yet many faculty members lack the preparation and support needed to adopt these approaches effectively in their classrooms. Our study addresses this issue through assessing the impact of a year-long faculty development program aimed at enhancing engineering faculty’s understanding and implementation of inclusive and equitable pedagogies. The program focuses on fostering critical awareness and practical strategies to incorporate equity and diversity issues within engineering classrooms.

Our faculty development program contains two phases. In Phase 1, the faculty are trained in inclusive pedagogies through an in-person, synchronous, weekly training during the spring term. The curriculum for this training is presented by experts on topics such as critical pedagogy, structural racism in engineering, inclusive teaching practices, and strategies for advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion within the current national context. In Phase 2, occurring in the following academic year, the faculty participants revise and teach one of their courses incorporating the tools and practices learned during the training. Our inaugural cohort launched in Spring 2024 with the Phase 1 training; our participants are currently engaged in Phase 2.

Throughout the year-long program, we are collecting longitudinal data (e.g., interviews, surveys, course materials) to evaluate the participants’ trajectories with respect to their implementation of inclusive pedagogies in engineering classrooms and their growth as equity-minded practitioners in engineering education. The focus of this paper is centered on the pre- and post-Phase 1 interviews conducted with faculty participants to capture the impact of the training on their evolving understanding and implementation of inclusive pedagogy. Our research question is: How does an inclusive excellence faculty development program impact faculty’s understanding and implementation of inclusive and equitable pedagogies?

The pre- and post-interviews were analyzed through the lens of culturally relevant pedagogies, emphasizing academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness as a framework for teaching. Through qualitative descriptive and longitudinal coding, results show that while faculty members entered the program with varying levels of understanding and confidence in implementing inclusive pedagogies, all demonstrated growth in at least one element of culturally relevant pedagogy and how they will implement new strategies in their courses. Across participants, they showed the most consistent strength and commitment to cultural competence and the most improvement in the area of academic success, while critical consciousness presented as the area with the greatest opportunity for future growth. Ultimately, faculty enhanced how they already incorporate diverse perspectives in their teaching, articulated new strategies they plan to employ to support students’ academic and professional success, and demonstrated growth in their awareness of the systemic challenges students face and their role in creating a more inclusive learning environment. The results will inform future data collection and analysis as participants continue through the program and guide improvements to future iterations of the training.

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the role of faculty development in engineering education by providing insights into how sustained training can influence faculty’s capacity to foster more inclusive, equity-minded pedagogical approaches. The findings underscore the importance of ongoing support and reflection to help engineering faculty meaningfully integrate inclusive practices into their teaching.

The preferred presentation style is roundtable discussion.