Partnership for Equity: A Multi-Institutional Initiative to Promote Inclusive Professional Identities in Engineering and Computer Science

Broadening participation in the engineering and scientific workforce is an important national goal that will increase the size of the US STEM enterprise, introduce new perspectives to address critical societal issues, and contribute to addressing inequity in STEM. In addition to attracting and retaining more students from underrepresented groups to engineering and computer science, it is important that all students are prepared to work with diverse groups of peers in an effective and inclusive manner. In our current work, we are incorporating targeted intervention activities into engineering and computer science courses to develop inclusive professional identities, which builds on theory of professional identity development. In addition to being technically savvy, inclusive professionals as those who are (a) inclusive in their behavior in teams, (b) cognizant of the benefits diversity can provide in problem-solving, and (c) mindful of a wide variety of consumers in designing products and services in addition to being technically savvy. We are currently intervening at four campuses: two R1 institutions, 1 R2, and 1 masters granting institution.

In this poster session, we will highlight some of the activities we use in engineering and computer sciences courses. The activities take multiple forms: homework assignments, in-class activities and discussions, and required out-of-class experiences. Each activity relates to one or more aspects of inclusive professional identity as defined above. We will also include potential issues to consider when implementing inclusion activities in engineering and computer science classrooms. Further, we will highlight adaptations of the assignments by campus, discipline, and year in school (lower-level courses, upper-level courses).

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under the awards #(1726268, #1726088, and #1725880/2033129). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.