Diversity in Engineering Education: An African American Female Professor’s Perspective

The concerns surrounding diversifying the engineering workforce have traditionally been linked to research with underrepresented groups. However, as the goal of the field of engineering is to produce a “global engineer,” issues of diversity emerge not only among the human capital of engineers but the contributions that can be made by a diverse education curriculum in engineering education. Liberal arts education, an integral component of the engineering education curriculum, provides the necessary coursework that helps to prepare the holistic engineer who understands the impact of engineering design in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts. The complexity of engineering projects requires not only the incorporation of sound technical skills but also the integration of the social, legal, economic, historical, and political constraints that define the range of solutions to engineering problems.

Diversity in the engineering curriculum should go beyond disciplinary diversity to include diversity of ideas and perspectives that emanate from such factors as gender, race, and ethnicity. As a woman of color in a field that has historically been reserved for men, I can see first hand the need for diversity in engineering. True, the number of female engineering students has risen over the past few years; however, the number of these women who move on to the professoriate is still disproportionately small. This is regrettable in view of the fact that women might well bring perspectives to engineering in some instances that are reflective of their views of the world, their views of science, their research priorities and, yes, even their interpretations of data.

While visiting a prominent West Coast institution, I witnessed a disparate number of women as educators in the field of engineering. Although the classrooms had a large number of female students, after casual discussions with these students, these women remarked that on the undergraduate and graduate levels, they have never had a female professor for any course in their academic careers. It disheartens me to know how much of a minority I am in the field. It is not just my physical body and the role modeling for women—or even men—that might be associated with it, but it is also my perspectives and views that will help produce better engineers among both genders.

Howard University, my predominately African American research university, surprised me when I discovered the historical pattern of stereotypes about women engineers and engineering faculty and the glass wall that existed at this institution whose mission is to serve underrepresented populations. The implied message of the stereotype is that males believe females lack the skill set necessary to occupy leadership positions. Throughout the years, I have developed survival skills to navigate among male colleagues. I learned the norms, culture, and practices of my colleagues by observing and imitating those who were successful but never losing track of that fact that I am a woman. I became the first woman to gain tenure in an engineering department, the first woman to earn the rank of professor, and first to serve as department chair while maintaining a well-funded research program and a full teaching load.

In recent years, my professional work has focused on activities that increase students’ motivation and interest in studying engineering, and more importantly in achieving academic success in engineering education. Recent assessments in the field call for responses “to concerns about declining enrollment, underrepresentation of women and minorities, and perceived inadequacies in the preparation of graduates for the multifaceted and shifting roles of practicing engineers” (Shepard and Silva 2001). I have examined the retention rates of underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and monitored their postbaccalaureate career choices and their interest in pursuing graduate study. This research has identified the conceptual foundations that underrepresented students need in order to pursue graduate STEM education. It has also helped in understanding the career and academic transitional experiences across gender lines, disciplines, and nationalities. Moreover, the findings revealed the importance of access to resources and mentorship as necessary ingredients to students’ successful pursuit and completion of postbaccalaureate degrees in the STEM fields. My impression is that the number of women in STEM areas is increasing due to the mentorship and the presence of role models at this university.

In many ways, my institution, despite the aforementioned stereotypes, is a bit of an outlier with respect to the realties that women face in the field. Approximately 40 percent of our civil engineering faculty are women, all of whom are undergraduate alumnae of Howard University who made the conscious choice to return to the university to join the professoriate upon completion of the Ph.D. elsewhere,

The challenge to the field is to ensure that diversity includes a stronger representation of women and underrepresented ethnic groups, as well as guaranteeing there is other diversity in the educational curriculum. Diversification that provides engineering students the opportunity to capitalize on coursework in such fields as sociology, anthropology, and political science so that engineering designs can expand beyond one-dimensional technical issues into a world that is more inclusive of other disciplines and one that considers the humanistic role of the engineer in society. Humanizing the engineering design process makes the process more conducive and relevant to the diverse and global populations that we serve. Global engineers of the future will need to “use new tools and apply ever increasing knowledge in expanding engineering disciplines all while considering societal repercussions and constraints” (Committee on the Engineer 2005).

The growing number of women engineering students should reflect not only the number of women practicing in the field, but also the number of women students who go on to pursue terminal degrees in engineering and move on to academia. What is it about the field of engineering that has inhibited our ability to cultivate our female students to pursue the professoriate? This question may be answered again by an examination of the engineering curricula. It can be argued that a curriculum that focuses on the holistic student, which includes interdisciplinary work as well as consistent, effective mentoring of women and minorities, can prove beneficial to increasing the number of women serving as engineering faculty.

It is time to be introspective and reflective as academic professionals in engineering. How are we as academicians ensuring that our underrepresented students see the value in joining the professoriate? This begins with the images we portray in the classroom. If, as in the case of the female students of the prominent West Coast university mentioned previously, our students never see themselves as leaders in the academic community, it does not become a tangible goal. However, using my own institution as a model, if we have these role models in the classroom, as well as mentor our students to understand the possibilities that await them as faculty, we can cultivate future professors for the field. We must also ensure that we have an inclusive curriculum that considers the women’s perspective as well as the perspective of people of color.

As engineering educators we serve as a key link in our student’s connection to the broader society. As society and the world demographics change, it would be detrimental to deprive them, both females and males, of exposure to varied opinions, view points and perspectives. It may be obvious that women engineering students would benefit but the male students will benefit equally if not more. They would learn to understand the female perspective and perhaps, more importantly, how to work with women as equals.

As we continue to dialogue about the need to diversify the engineering workforce, we need to also continue our scholarly approach to understanding how diverse students learn engineering, how to reform the engineering curriculum to include diverse perspectives and how to woo and interest diverse students in engineering. As we continue our pursuits, special attention should be paid to the doubly underrepresented group—the female engineering student of color.