2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Faculty Sensemaking in the Enactment of an Equity-Orientated Social Belonging Intervention in Engineering

This research paper explores how engineering faculty make sense of changes in the climate of their classrooms and their instructor identity after implementing an equity-oriented intervention that asked them to authentically share their own personal stories of struggle in engineering. Using semi-structured interview data from ten engineering faculty from two large public research institutions in the Midwestern United States, this qualitative study examines how engineering faculty made sense of implementing an equity-oriented social belonging intervention and how that sensemaking shaped instructional practices, classroom interactions, and perceptions of student engagement. A deeper understanding of how engineering faculty make sense of equity and belonging initiatives and how their mindsets shape classroom dynamics provides a foundation for scaling interventions like the one used in this study to foster more inclusive environments for underrepresented students. Furthermore, the findings highlight how faculty sensemaking shapes ongoing engagement with equity-oriented interventions and their continued enactment in engineering classrooms.

Authors

Dr. Linda DeAngelo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8508-5909 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Linda DeAngelo is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Director of Graduate Studies in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. DeAngelo studies social stratification, investigating how social inequities are produced, maintained, and interrupted. Currently her scholarship focuses on access to and engagement in faculty mentorship, the pathway into and through graduate education, and gender and race in engineering.
Charlie Díaz University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Charlie Diaz is a PhD student studying Higher Education at the University of Pittsburgh. They are a recipient of the K. Leroy Irvis Fellowship. Their research interests include minoritized student experiences in Higher Ed, student activism, and the development of inclusive policy and practice in Higher Ed.
Samantha R Shaw University of Pittsburgh
Prof. Natascha Trellinger Buswell http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8503-5787 University of California, Irvine [biography]

Natascha Trellinger Buswell is an associate professor of teaching in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her B.S. in aerospace engineering at Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in engineering education at Purdue University. She is particularly interested in inclusive teaching conceptions and methods and graduate level engineering education.
Prof. Allison Godwin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0741-3356 Cornell University [biography]

Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is the Dr. G. Stephen Irwin '67, '68 Professor in Engineering Education Research in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. She is also the Associate Director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and a McCormick Teaching Excellence Institute Research Fellow. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse groups of students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging, motivation, and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2021 Chemical Engineering Education William H. Corcoran Award, 2022 American Educational Research Association Education in the Professions (Division I) 2021-2022 Outstanding Research Publication Award, and the 2023 AIChE Excellence in Engineering Education Research Award.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

For those interested in:

Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
engineering
Faculty