Despite significant investments by government agencies, universities, foundations and industries that rely on the skills and talents of engineers, Black, Indigenous and People Of Color (BIPOC) and women are underrepresented in the engineering workforce.
Engineering depends on team collaboration, and research shows that diverse groups are typically more effective than homogeneous teams when complex problem solving are critical goals. The U.S. must educate a diverse engineering workforce to address the complex technological challenges faced by our society. Greater diversity in the STEM workforce will result in a new generation of engineering talent and leadership to secure our nation’s future and long-term competitiveness.
While there has been progress in increasing the number and percent of women and BIPOC graduates since 2011, engineering is still a discipline graduating predominantly male students. BIPOC students drop off the engineering pipeline at key transition points (see graph below) – they receive only 6% of engineering Ph.Ds. Women are also underrepresented among graduate degree recipients. (Source: IPEDS, 2021)
As a community of educators and professional engineers, we are not addressing the problem systemically, i.e., we are not addressing the root causes that are 90% of the problem. Moreover, our current efforts to broaden participation in engineering fail to consistently leverage evidence-based, high impact practices and redress obstacles, all of which are necessary to catalyze institutional change at scale.
The Engineering PLUS Alliance, funded at $10 million over 5 years, is one of 17 National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES Alliances of higher education institutions and the only Alliance focused on engineering. NSF INCLUDES is a nationwide initiative designed to build U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by increasing the participation of individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. The Engineering PLUS Alliance posits that networked communities are needed to build an inclusive infrastructure that will drive the transformative, systemic and sustainable change needed to achieve 100K undergraduate and 30k graduate engineering degrees awarded annually to BIPOC and women students by 2026.
To achieve transformative, systemic, and sustainable change, the Alliance PLUS team aims to recruit over 500 engineering institutions and community colleges into regional Hubs, and train more than 400 stEm PEER change agents. We envision the potential for solutions to be strongly informed by national and regional advisory boards that include industry, federal and non-profit stakeholders. Through the strength and breadth of the Engineering PLUS network, the widespread adoption of high-impact practices proven to increase diversity in engineering education is possible and achievable. This systemic change, at scale, will result in the achievement of the Alliance’s goal to dramatically increase the number of BIPOC and women engineering graduates annually to 100,000 B.S. and 30,000 M.S./Ph.Ds within five years, while simultaneously increasing the diversity of our nation’s workforce.
The Engineering PLUS Alliance, funded at $10 million over 5 years, is one of 17 National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES Alliances of higher education institutions and the only Alliance focused on engineering. NSF INCLUDES is a nationwide initiative designed to build U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by increasing the participation of individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. The Engineering PLUS Alliance posits that networked communities are needed to build an inclusive infrastructure that will drive the transformative, systemic and sustainable change needed to achieve 100K undergraduate and 30k graduate engineering degrees awarded annually to BIPOC and women students by 2026.
The Backbone provides oversight of the research, data and evaluation of the validity of the underlying Engineering PLUS hypothesis, goals and strategies. Leadership and communication are key elements of the Engineering PLUS Backbone operation. The backbone team works very closely with the other strategies.
In addition, the Alliance will leverage its partnership with the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) to: 1). Mentor engineering schools seeking the ASEE Diversity Recognition Program’s (ADRP) Bronze recognition and enable institutions to move from the Bronze to Silver to Gold Levels. 2). Engage and expand community college participation in ADRP; 3). Develop criteria to engage industry participation in an industry-based ADRP.
The Engineering PLUS Regional Hubs are clusters of regional LSAMPs and other Institutions. The goal is to establish a network of Regional Hubs incorporating existing LSAMP networks and non-LSAMP networks.
The Engineering PLUS Alliance is training, empowering, resourcing and supporting a national network of stEm* PEERs (Practitioners Enhancing Engineering Regionally), change agents who will accelerate the implementation of high-impact, evidence-based practices within their home institutions and beyond. *“E” emphasizes Engineering.
To scale and sustain the work of Engineering PLUS, we will recruit stakeholder partners to invest in regional Hubs, PEER change agents, capacity building for higher education partners, and to establish an endowment. A Sustainability Advisory Board of industry, government and foundation partners identifies partner candidates, promotes the Engineering PLUS Alliance, cultivates relationships, secures commitments and promotes activities with industries, agencies, the Engineering PLUS regional HUBS, and our collaborators.
The CIDER team brings together a multidisciplinary effort to support the data-focused activities, research and evaluation of the Engineering PLUS Alliance. They are supporting the work by engaging their synergistic team of data scientists, researchers and evaluators (internal and external) and creating a foundational platform that supports capacity building at multiple levels.