Collaborative Research: A Virtual Community of Practice to Promote LGBTQ Inclusion in Engineering

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Recent research on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in engineering has shown that the climate can be unfriendly (or "chilly") for both students and professionals. This project aims to increase the inclusion of LGBTQ students and professionals in engineering. It will provide support for new approaches to foster inclusion and research on how to enable faculty and staff to become change agents. The project will identify issues faced by LGBTQ students and professionals in engineering, identify and implement strategies to create more welcoming engineering environments, and disseminate those strategies so that they can be expanded to a national level. Successful completion of this project will result in the implementation of policies and practices in engineering environments to increase inclusion and participation of LGBTQ students and professionals. In addition, it will determine the usefulness of a Virtual Community of Practice model for efforts such as this to address other societal issues.A chilly climate for LGBTQ individual can be found in every sector of STEM professions, where cultural norms and professional ideologies make it difficult to recognize and rectify exclusionary practices. One negative consequence of this chilly environment is difficulty in recruiting and retaining talented LGBTQ individuals into the engineering profession. This project uses qualitative research to generate new knowledge about the processes of developing a community of practice to promote LGBTQ inclusion in engineering, how the members of the community develop into change agents, and what strategies are effective in reshaping norms and increasing LGBTQ inclusion in engineering departments. The results will be translated into practice through the iterative refinement of Virtual Community of Practice activities and implementation of promising practices to advance LGBTQ inclusion in engineering departments. In addition, the research will be the basis of systematic development and formative refinement of an online SafeZone course to provide inclusion training to engineering students and professionals nationwide. The impact of this project will extend beyond the boundaries of engineering to STEM more broadly, as the Virtual Community of Practice members will include members from the various STEM fields.