Diversity & Inclusion
ONGOING DIVERSITY EFFORTS
The UD College of Engineering is committed to broadening participation and fostering inclusion among its students, faculty, and staff. A more diverse and inclusive College supports academic excellence by expanding the talent pool we draw from, facilitating creativity and innovation, and helping us better serve a diverse society. To achieve this goal, we seek to identify and break down barriers that have systematically, though often unintentionally, inhibited full participation by all. We have a broad-based effort underway, with more than 40 faculty, staff, students actively and meaningfully engaged through four working groups focused on faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and staff, respectively. Suggestions and questions are welcome. Please contact the appropriate group leader.
Rachel Davidson
Chief Diversity Advocate
rdavidso@udel.edu
SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO
No one person or group can achieve inclusive excellence alone. The challenges require ideas, energy, and commitment from all members of the community.
Leadership for Working Groups
Faculty: Rachel Davidson
Graduate Students: Professor Michael Santare and Louise Bank
Undergraduate Students: Professor Jenni Buckley and Professor Sarah Rooney
Staff: Deirdre Martin and Nicole Murphy
University-Level Partners
- Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity
- UD-ADVANCE, NSF-funded institute aimed at increasing opportunities for UD’s women faculty
- Office of Equity and Inclusion
Department-Level Partners
Each Department has numerous diversity and inclusion activities as well. Leaders of those groups are:
| Dept | Biomedical | Chemical & Biomolecular | Civil & Environmental | Computer & Information Sciences | Electrical & Computer | Material Science | Mechanical |
| Representative | Prof. Sarah Rooney | Prof. Eric Furst | Prof. Jennie Saxe | Prof. Cory Bart | Prof. Hui Fang | Prof. Robert Opila | Prof. Heather Doty |
Our Approach
Guiding Principles
- Engage. The challenges we face require ideas, energy, and buy-in from as many members of the College community as possible. We seek to engage everyone at the level of commitment they can offer.
- Divide and coordinate. By partitioning responsibility among the four groups and empowering each to define the challenges and propose solutions, we establish accountability and allow each group to focus on a more manageable task. Coordinating among the four groups, with everyday College operations and with the Vice Provost for Diversity, UD ADVANCE, and others at the university level, we ensure the groups’ efforts are aligned and efficient.
- Be strategic. Our approach is data and research driven, systematic and analytical, setting goals, targeting interventions, and assessing progress to be as effective and efficient as possible.
- Integrate. Rather than operating as a separate stream of activities, diversity and inclusion must be an integral part of normal College operations – recruiting, advising, and teaching students; recruiting and supporting faculty and staff. This is the only way to get to the source, rather than symptom, of some issues, and to ensure that changes are institutionalized and sustainable.
- Communicate. We seek transparency and openness for diversity and inclusion efforts so that we can uncover and include as many good ideas as possible, engage as many community members as possible, and ultimately take advantage of momentum from early successes to facilitate later ones.
Research
The following papers describe research conducted in the College as we strive to advance understanding of diversity and inclusion, and to support research-based approaches to it.
2018
2019
- A Framework for Quantifying Student Self-Confidence and Task Choice in Engineering Design-Related Activities
- Adjusting the Lens: Comparison of Focus Group and Cross-Sectional Survey Data in Identifying and Addressing Issues of Diversity and Inclusion in Undergraduate Engineering Programs
- The MEP Census: Characterizing Essential Programmatic and Intrastructural Elements of Minority Engineering Programs (MEP) Nationwide
- Gender and Racial Disparities in Students’ Self-Confidence on Team-Based Engineering Design Projects
2020
- 2020 Faculty Development Mini-Modules on Evidence-Based Inclusive Teaching and Mentoring Practices in Engineering This paper was awarded the ASEE Faculty Development Division Best Diversity Paper Award and is a finalist for the ASEE CDEI Best Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Paper Award.
Programs and Groups
The College of Engineering seeks to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff through the implementation of programs to assist in the achievement of academic, career and personal goals.
Pre-college Students
- FAME/UD summer residential program – A 4-week summer residential program for high school students to encourage increased participation of underrepresented students in engineering, technology, science, and mathematics (STEM) professions.
- College of Engineering K12 Outreach – Engaging and exciting programs for grades K-12 based upon cutting-edge research conducted by UD faculty, staff and students. Included in our programs and events are: Art & Engineering; Camps; Competitions; Lending Library for Teachers; Onsite classroom programs; Conference presentations and more. The model is to excite and engage the students in the K-12 space as well as the people around them, parents, teachers and informal providers, to create a supported opportunity for experiencing engineering education. One of the unexpected outcomes of working with K-12 Engineering for the students, faculty and staff is the training in educational pedagogy and protection of minors that is a generalizable skill that each participant takes with them.
- Ambassadors for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering – College students who serve as admission representatives for high school students considering majoring in civil engineering, construction engineering and management, or environmental engineering at UD.
- Mechanical Engineering Student Squad (MESS) – A student organization that seeks to make a positive impact through recruiting, retaining, and advancing mechanical engineers.
Other university pre-college programs: https://www.udel.edu/apply/undergraduate-admissions/precollege-programs/
Undergraduates
- Resources to Inspire Successful Engineers (RISE) – Program to recruit and support success among the undergraduate students from underrepresented groups
- McNair Scholars – Federally funded program to help prepare low-income, first-generation college students and students from underrepresented groups for graduate study
- NSF Philadelphia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) – Funding and programming to promote participation and success of undergraduates from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines.
Student Organizations
- Society of Women Engineers
- National Society of Black Engineers
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
- Alpha Omega Epsilon
- Association for Computing Machinery – Women (ACM-W) Also known as CISters. A group of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty that support women in technology-driven fields at UD.
- Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics – Supports the LGBTQ+ community.
COE Student Group Funding
This mechanism is partially funded through a generous donation from JP Morgan Chase.
- Request for Application
- Impact Report Template [Word Document Download]
- Event Summary Form [Preview Questions]
- Event Summary Form [Qualtrics Survey]
Graduate Students
- Women In Engineering – Group of women engineering graduate students supported by the Dean’s office to help promote the participation and success of women in engineering.
- Association for Computing Machinery – Women (ACM-W) Also known as CISters. A group of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty that support women in technology-driven fields at UD.
- GEM – Fellowship program that offers opportunities for underrepresented minority students to obtain M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering through a program of paid summer internships and graduate financial assistance.
- Bridge to the Doctorate – Funding and programming to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who pursue and complete graduate study in STEM.
- Graduate Student Advising Resources
- COE EmPOWER – A student-led peer mentoring initiative for graduate students.
- National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) – Attend webinars, workshops, or multi-week courses. Or sign up for weekly emails with helpful tips on how to be an effective faculty member. UD has an institutional membership, so it is free for all faculty to join. Just go to the website and click join!
Faculty
- UD-ADVANCE – NSF funded institute aimed at increasing opportunities for UD’s women faculty
- Dual Career Program – UD offers assistance to the spouses and partners of faculty who are moving to the University of Delaware
- Family friendly policies – UD supports a family friendly environment through multiple policies and programs.
- Inclusive Teaching – These six modules introduce evidence-based teaching and mentoring practices that support an inclusive climate.
- National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) – Attend webinars, workshops, or multi-week courses. Or sign up for weekly emails with helpful tips on how to be an effective faculty member. UD has an institutional membership, so it is free for all faculty to join. Just go to the website and click join!
- COE Faculty and Staff monthly discussions of racism, diversity, and inclusion
K-12 Teachers
- Project Lead the Way (PLTW) – Through a partnership with UD College of Education and Human Development, PLTW provides engineering-focused professional development for elementary through high school teachers.
- UD’s Professional Development Center for Educators (PDCE) Professional development for K12 teachers mostly in the summer, including “Design of Design.”
Data
To assess progress towards our goals, evaluate interventions, and identify both successes and areas requiring more attention, we are regularly monitoring (1) the demographic makeup of the faculty, students, and staff in the College of Engineering and (2) the climate within the College.
Demographic Data
Demographic data are updated each fall. They include both data on absolute numbers of faculty, students, and staff, as well as comparisons to our peer institutions on these metrics.
- Fall 2021 report and raw data
- Fall 2020 report and raw data
- Fall 2019 report and raw data
- Fall 2018 report and raw data
- Fall 2017 report
Additional demographic data is available for the University of Delaware as a whole through the Institutional Research Office: UD Data on Diversity.
Focus group studies
In collaboration with the UD Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), we conducted focus group studies of College of Engineering undergraduates (2017), graduate students (2018), and staff (2018). The aims of the focus group studies were to:
- Examine perceptions of diversity and inclusion among the students and staff in the College
- Identify strengths, areas in need of improvement, and differences in perceptions between majority and underrepresented groups
- Provide the foundation for development of climate survey instruments to be deployed periodically in the future to track progress
Summaries of the studies are available here:
Climate surveys
Surveys developed based on the focus group results will be deployed for undergraduate students, graduate students, and staff every two years to assess the climate in the College. Perceptions of the faculty will be captured using the UD ADVANCE climate survey.
- Undergraduate student survey
- Graduate student survey
- Staff survey
- Faculty climate survey
See UD ADVANCE for the periodically conducted University faculty climate survey.
Recent Highlights
Committed to advancing women’s equality on campus
Heather Walling Doty receives Torch Award from UD Women’s Caucus
Epps Named ACS Fellow
UD Engineering Prof. Thomas Epps selected for American Chemical Society 2021 Class of Fellows.
A Gentleman and a Scholar
Rising junior Eduardo Nombera-Bueno lands competitive scholarship from the American Chemical Society.
Events
Celebrating Women Engineers
The University of Delaware is committed to the success of women in engineering. Here are just a few of the women who set the course for the engineers of today and tomorrow.
WHAT THE COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION WILL DO
Building on the many tasks undertaken in the last few years, as summarized in the Strategic Plan and Two-year Update, the College commits to the following actions:
- Continue to collect and disseminate demographic data and survey-based climate information to track changes over time, identify new and on-going problems, and evaluate the success of interventions.
- Create a link to the Office of Equity and Inclusion’s electronic Discrimination/Harassment Incident Reporting Form from College homepage.
- Recognize College community members who demonstrate sustained and impactful commitments to diversity and inclusion through the College Diversity and Inclusion Award.
For undergraduates
- Recruit a new, full-time Director for the Resources to Inspire Successful Engineers (RISE) program, a key retention effort for students from underrepresented groups, to update and expand the program.
- Increase scholarships through a development campaign.
- Develop a two-week summer program for incoming students from underrepresented groups.
- Collaborate more actively and directly with admissions to recruit a more diverse student body.
- Continue the on-going effort to develop new articulation agreements with local technical colleges and associate degree programs.
- Provide additional financial support for diversity-focused student organizations and incentivize interactions with other student organizations by expanding the COE Student Group Funding program.
- Maximize the frequency of offerings of freshmen and sophomore undergraduate classes (e.g., Statics), including summers, to enhance flexibility.
For graduate students
- Expand current outreach efforts for graduate student recruiting (e.g., GEM, Bridge to the Doctorate, ENGINE, McNair Scholars Program).
- Increase scholarships through a development campaign.
- Collaborate with departments to support overlap of recruitment opportunities with conference attendance and professional development (e.g., at SACNAS, NSBE, SWE, and SHPE conferences).
- Clarify policies related to graduate student progress and grievances.
- Plan events to facilitate conversations about diversity and inclusion.
- Provide additional financial support for diversity-focused student organizations and incentivize interactions with other student organizations by expanding COE Student Group Funding program to include graduate student organizations.
- Meet with each department to review program data on surveys, enrollments, time to degree, and other indicators to best inform where targeted interventions are warranted.
For faculty and staff
- Encourage the addition of questions on diversity, equity, and inclusion into end-of-semester student course feedback forms.
- Develop and disseminate College expected behaviors list and code of conduct to enhance visibility of expected behaviors and support an improved culture.
- Expand faculty mentoring seminars, networking, and other opportunities, especially for faculty from underrepresented groups and women faculty.
- Continue to host opportunities for honest, open discussions about race and inequity as started this summer.
- Evaluate pay equity for faculty and staff, and request adjustments if needed.
- Analyze data on staff hiring to identify opportunities to broaden participation, including possibly implementing workshops to teach best practices for staff hiring similar to those for faculty hiring.
- Develop a staff mentoring program.
- Expand training opportunities for staff professional development.
- Encourage positive faculty-staff interactions by introducing faculty-staff partnership awards.
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Everyone
- Educate yourself about racism, sexism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and related topics. [see OEI list of resources]
- Share your diversity/inclusion concerns and/or ideas with the Chief Diversity Advocate and/or appropriate COE diversity working group. Join one of the groups if you can!
- If you experience or witness microagressions, discrimination, or any behavior that is inconsistent with the College values of inclusive excellence, say something, or report it to the Chief Diversity Advocate
- Attend one of the many diversity and inclusion events put on by the College, Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Center for the Study of Diversity, UD ADVANCE, or other groups.
- Become a Leveraging Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Ally
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Department Chairs/Departments
- Develop a department diversity and inclusion committee that includes the representatives of the four College working groups. Each department committee should facilitate communication between the College and the department, as well as taking on any department-specific efforts.
- Support the student ambassador program in your department (e.g., MESS, ACES). Start one if one does not exist.
- Support COE-EmPOWER, the graduate student peer mentoring program.
- Link to the COE Diversity and Inclusion website from your department website.
- Support faculty, staff, and student attendance at professional development events, such as SWE, NSBE, SHPE, and field-specific conferences.
- Work with COE Communications to publish stories of accomplishments of faculty, staff, and trainees who are part of groups that are traditionally marginalized in academia/STEM.
- Schedule departmental faculty meetings and events during traditional workday hours to minimize conflict for individuals who have other obligations.
- Review graduate student recruitment policies, such as the GRE requirement, and ensure a holistic review takes place.
- Coach faculty if negative interactions occur or are chronic; treat as an opportunity to improve the dept/lab/office culture and climate for all who are under your purview.
- In annual appraisals, Department Chairs should ask faculty and staff what they are doing to support diversity and inclusion and to ensure high quality, effective mentoring of junior faculty.
- Department Chairs continue to invite the Chief Diversity Advocate and College diversity working groups to present at a department faculty meeting once per semester.
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Faculty members
- Watch the inclusive teaching modules and incorporate inclusive teaching tips in your classes, such as eliminating weed-out culture, mitigating bias in evaluating student work, and promoting positive student teamwork.
- Select teaching assistants deliberately to achieve diverse representation, and help them receive appropriate training.
- Embed topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion in your courses.
- Develop a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement to include on your course syllabi and research group expectations
- Adopt the graduate student advising tools to best support your graduate research assistants.
- Invite senior graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from underrepresented groups to give seminars to support pre-recruitment of a more diverse faculty.
- Implement best practices in faculty search committees, holistic graduate admissions practices and post-doctoral researcher recruitment, as well as promotion and tenure committees to minimize the negative effects of implicit bias (Faculty recruitment guidelines and UD ADVANCE resources).
- When developing broader impacts for proposals to the National Science Foundation, collaborate with one of the COE diversity working groups.
- Keep in mind the importance of diversity when nominating colleagues for awards, identifying speakers for conference presentations, and planning seminar series.
- If you supervise staff members, take one or more ConnectingU “Management Essentials” courses.
As well as,
- Educate yourself about racism, sexism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and related topics. [see OEI list of resources]
- Share your diversity/inclusion concerns and/or ideas with the Chief Diversity Advocate and/or appropriate COE diversity working group. Join one of the groups if you can!
- If you experience or witness microagressions, discrimination, or any behavior that is inconsistent with the College values of inclusive excellence, say something, or report it to the Chief Diversity Advocate.
- Attend one of the many diversity and inclusion events hosted by the College, Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Center for the Study of Diversity, UD ADVANCE, or other groups.
- Become a Leveraging Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Ally.
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Staff members
- Attend brown bag lunches and other diversity and inclusion events for COE staff.
- Implement best practices in staff search committees to minimize the negative effects of implicit bias (UD ADVANCE resources).
- Join the COE staff diversity working group.
- Participate in workshops and training opportunities when presented in order to continue demonstrating your commitment toward maintaining, and growing, COE standards for culture and climate.
As well as,
- Educate yourself about racism, sexism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and related topics. [see OEI list of resources]
- Share your diversity/inclusion concerns and/or ideas with the Chief Diversity Advocate and/or appropriate COE diversity working group. Join one of the groups if you can!
- If you experience or witness microagressions, discrimination, or any behavior that is inconsistent with the College values of inclusive excellence, say something, or report it to the Chief Diversity Advocate.
- Attend one of the many diversity and inclusion events hosted by the College, Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Center for the Study of Diversity, UD ADVANCE, or other groups.
- Become a Leveraging Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Ally.
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Graduate students
- Ask your advisor to adopt the graduate student advising tools.
- Watch the inclusive teaching modules and incorporate inclusive teaching tips in classes in which you are a teaching assistant.
- Contact the COE graduate student diversity working group to help organize a speaker, panel, or event.
- Look at your study groups and consider expanding your network to include people whose racial or gender identity is different from yours.
- Write a team norms document at the start of each team project (even when it’s not required) to establish protocols for communication, division of labor, and establishing an inclusive environment; periodically review and revise this document as the project progresses.
- Join a diversity-focused student group (e.g., SWE, NSBE, SHPE) or organize joint events with one and apply for funding through the College of Engineering (scroll to COE Student Group Funding).
As well as,
- Educate yourself about racism, sexism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and related topics. [see OEI list of resources]
- Share your diversity/inclusion concerns and/or ideas with the Chief Diversity Advocate and/or appropriate COE diversity working group. Join one of the groups if you can!
- If you experience or witness microagressions, discrimination, or any behavior that is inconsistent with the College values of inclusive excellence, say something, or report it to the Chief Diversity Advocate.
- Attend one of the many diversity and inclusion events hosted by the College, Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Center for the Study of Diversity, UD ADVANCE, or other groups.
- Become a Leveraging Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Ally.
The following are suggested actions each of us can take.
Undergraduate students
- Bring #Hengineer materials back to your high school to help recruit a diverse group of new students to UD.
- Look at your study groups and consider expanding your network to include people whose racial or gender identity is different from yours.
- Write a team norms document at the start of each team project (even when it’s not required) to establish protocols for communication, division of labor, and establishing an inclusive environment; periodically review and revise this document as the project progresses.
- Join a diversity-focused student group (e.g., SWE, NSBE, SHPE) or organize joint events with one and apply for funding through the College of Engineering (scroll to COE Student Group Funding).
- Join the student ambassador program ambassador program in your department (e.g., MESS, ACES). Help start one if one does not exist.
- Ask your department’s representative(s) to the COE Diversity Committee how you can get involved in department initiatives.
As well as,
- Educate yourself about racism, sexism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and related topics. [see OEI list of resources]
- Share your diversity/inclusion concerns and/or ideas with the Chief Diversity Advocate and/or appropriate COE diversity working group. Join one of the groups if you can!
- If you experience or witness microagressions, discrimination, or any behavior that is inconsistent with the College values of inclusive excellence, say something, or report it to the Chief Diversity Advocate.
- Attend one of the many diversity and inclusion events hosted by the College, Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Center for the Study of Diversity, UD ADVANCE, or other groups.
- Become a Leveraging Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Ally.