Better Engaging Minority Serving Institutions in Engineering Education Research and Innovation

American Society For Engineering Education, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Minority Serving Institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and other Minority Serving Institutions, are critical components of US higher education as sources of baccalaureate recipients in engineering. Three factors drive this project: - With the cessation of data collection by the Engineering Workforce Commission, it is critical that engineering enrollment and graduation data from these institutions remain available to engineering education researchers. - Given the disproportionate role of these institutions as the place of baccalaureate origin for African American and Hispanic American doctoral recipients, they should be key participants in efforts, such as those called for by the National Science Foundation, to develop and recruit such persons as engineering faculty at their own institutions as well as at Predominantly White Institutions. - Members of the American Society for Engineering Education's Engineering Deans Council seek to develop strong partnerships between research-intensive engineering schools and non-PhD granting engineering schools serving populations underrepresented in engineering. For this commitment to have meaning, the deans of minority serving institutions must regularly interact and engage with other engineering deans so as to build collaborative, mutually beneficial partnerships. To address the challenges and opportunities indicated above, we propose to bring 10 engineering deans from minority serving institutions to the April 2017 Engineering Deans Institute in order to 1. Learn the benefits of and requirements for participating in our enrollment and graduation data collection system. 2. Develop strategies for collaboration with research-intensive engineering deans to inspire, mentor, and place underrepresented minority doctoral recipients as engineering faculty members. 3. Develop broader research and education partnerships with other engineering deans in order to diversify better the engineering workforce. Involving these deans is important because (a) capturing the enrollment and graduation numbers of their students ensures the completeness and accuracy of national data, (b) these institutions are significant sources of future faculty drawn from underrepresented populations, and (c) these institutions represent knowledgeable partners for collaborative efforts to build supportive environments for underrepresented minority students at all institution types. ASEE will survey the invited deans as well as the regular attendees of the Engineering Deans Institute to gauge the impact of the invited deans' participation on their inclination toward participating in ASEE's data collection system (and thereby the availability of their data to engineering education and higher education researchers), and the interest of both sets of parties on collaboration and cooperation to increase the number of engineering faculty drawn from underrepresented minority populations and to build supportive environments to enhance the academic and professional success of underrepresented minority students.