Scaling Capacity-Building of Minority Engineering Programs and Women Engineering Programs

Despite recent increases, Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOCs) remain underrepresented among engineering degree recipients in the U.S. Moreover, women, who make up just over 50 percent of the general population, comprise just under 22 percent of all undergraduate engineering degrees awarded, a ratio that has not markedly changed over the past several years (Roy, 2018).

The underrepresentation means that academia and industry are shortchanged from the benefits associated with greater diversity among their technical professionals. The 50k Coalition was founded in 2016 by the leaders of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to recruit stakeholder organizations that would work collaboratively to broaden participation in engineering.

Now totaling 60 institutional members (33 universities, 22 engineering professional societies, and five corporations), the 50k Coalition will use this planning grant from the Broadening Participation in Engineering program to develop a strategic plan that will focus on increasing the retention and graduation attainment of undergraduate BIPOC and women students by building the capacity of existing Multicultural Engineering Programs (MEPs) and Women in Engineering Programs (WEPs). We will also develop plans to assist in the development of MEP/WEP structures and programs on campuses that do not currently have them.

Since the 1970’s, the MEP and WEP functions in engineering schools have proliferated and been successful, but neither the availability nor the implementation of MEP/WEP functions is universal across ABET-accredited institutions. While there is research available on the positive impact of MEP/WEPs, there is not yet research to define models of highly effective MEP/WEP offices, or to support implementation in ways that ensure their quality and longevity.

The knowledge generated from this planning grant will fill this gap. The presence of these functions is critical to broadening participation in engineering and thus achieving the Coalition’s goals as well as the goals of the NSF Engineering Directorate.

During the planning process, we will: 1) conduct ethnographic research to construct archetypes (that will become blueprints) of successful MEP/WEP offices for various institutional types: large, small, public, private, minority-serving; 2) develop guidelines for implementing, scaling, and institutionalizing MEP/WEP programs and plan for a transparent common-evidence system; 3.) determine the role that the NSBE, SWE, SHPE and AISES collegiate chapters can play in MEP/WEP capacity building, given that chapters are typically sponsored by MEP and WEP offices. Extended Case Study analysis of 50k Coalition engineering schools that are currently graduating higher than-average numbers of American Indian, African American, Hispanic or women students (positive outliers), will provide insight into key characteristics of successful MEP/WEP programs and how to best implement and institutionalize them.

The study will also include two HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), two HSIs (Hispanic-serving Institutions), and a TCU (tribal college/university), all ABET accredited. Moreover, WEPs are typically structured to support women students (i.e., white, Asian, BIPOC, female identified) though not necessarily exclusively, while MEPs engage BIPOC students (those identified as male, female and gender non-conforming).

Although these groups are not intentionally exclusive, recent literature has highlighted how Black women are not adequately served by engineering programs (Gibson & Espino, 2016). With this in mind, we will focus part of our study on how various intersections of identity are considered in MEP/WEP programs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.