BPE-OT: Beyond the Basisc: Race and Gender Conscious Mentoring for Black Faculty Candidates in Engineering

这个工程教育研究项目旨在了解工程学术专业的交叉性在非洲裔美国工程博士生和博士后研究人员的少数民族指导计划中得到解决的程度。交叉性被定义为种族刻板印象、性别偏见和其他问题的相互作用。各种形式的指导项目并不能改变非裔美国人在工程学院的缓慢进步。本研究将通过非裔美国博士和博士后学者的单一聚焦镜头仔细检查现有的指导计划。目的是利用焦点小组、调查和访谈，将他们的经验与指导计划结合起来。然后，PI将设计一个全面的关注种族和性别的指导计划，该计划将在全国范围内实施，约有120名参与者。这项工作将利用该PI先前的奖励，重点关注非洲裔美国工程博士候选人面临的障碍和机会，以及所有级别的非洲裔美国教师面临的问题。这个项目更广泛的意义和重要性在于有可能发展出一种成功的、全面的指导模式，这种模式可以更广泛地适用于其他种族/性别群体。一个成功的指导模式应该增加工程学术队伍中代表性不足的群体的持久性。增加来自不同背景的教师榜样的数量，将创造一个更具包容性的教育环境，鼓励越来越多的不同背景的学生攻读工程专业。该项目与NSF的战略目标重叠，即识别、分享和扩展最佳实践，以扩大工程劳动力的参与。NSF专注于扩大STEM学科中代表性不足的群体、机构和地理区域的参与，与学术和私营部门合作伙伴合作，确保STEM教育和劳动力准备、基础设施和研究机会广泛可用，以确保技术劳动力、科学家和工程师拥有在全球知识经济中蓬勃发展所需的技能和机会。

This engineering education research project seeks to understand the degree to which intersectionality within the engineering academic profession has been addressed in minority mentoring initiatives for African American engineering doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers. Intersectionality is defined as the interplay of racial stereotypes, gender biases and other issues. A wide variety of mentoring programs in various formats have not been able to alter the slow progress of African Americans in engineering faculty ranks. This research will closely examine existing mentoring programs through a single focused lens of African American doctoral and postdoctoral scholars. The intent is to utilize focus groups, surveys and interviews to synthesize their experiences with mentoring programs. The PI will then design a holistic racial and gender attentive mentoring program that will be implemented on a national scale with approximately 120 participants. This effort will leverage a prior award to this PI focused on both identifying the barriers and opportunities facing African American engineering doctoral candidates aspiring to the professoriate, and the issues facing African American faculty at all ranks.The broader significance and importance of this project is the potential for development of a successful, holistic mentoring model that can be more broadly adapted to other racial/gender groups. A successful mentoring model should increase the persistence of underrepresented groups in the engineering academic ranks. Increasing the numbers of faculty role models from diverse backgrounds will create a more inclusive educational environment that will encourage an increasing number of diverse students to pursue engineering studies.This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of identifying, sharing and expanding best practices for broadening participation in the engineering workforce. NSF focuses on broadening participation of groups, institutions, and geographic regions underrepresented in STEM disciplines, working with academic and private sector partners to make certain that STEM education and workforce preparation, infrastructure, and research opportunities are broadly available to ensure that the technical workforce and scientists and engineers have the skills and opportunities needed to flourish in a global knowledge economy.