Responses of Universities to Crisis- Impact and Implications on Underrepresented Minority Engineering Faculty

鉴于2019冠状病毒病大流行、社会动荡、金融和其他危机，了解这些事件对高等教育的影响至关重要。特别是，必须密切关注这些事件对工程学中代表性不足的少数民族（URM）教员的影响，这在大流行之前就已引起严重关切。这项工作旨在确保他们的声音在影响其职业轨迹的政策变化中得到倾听和反映。本项目将采用一种整体方法，从各种类型的机构（如西班牙裔服务机构、以白人为主的机构和历史上的黑人学院和大学）收集URM工程学院，特别是女性的数据。这些教师的声音将被用来向学术界的政策制定者通报URM工程学院专业成果的多重危机汇合的多个方面。这项工作将处于研究的前沿，研究与URM工程学院的可持续发展和进步有关的政策制定和实施。它的目的是告知系统的，长期的和可行的计划，以解决学院潜在的进一步破坏和/或持久的变化。该项目将通过以下方式完成：(1)收集这些危机期间的生活经历数据，并分享墨尔本大学工程学院对其个人生活和职业生涯影响的见解；(2)建立与数据收集/分析确定的主题相关的中期和当前大学政策数据集；(3)利用数据为政策变化提供信息，并激励当前的举措，以支持URM工程学院的保留；(4)举办一个虚拟研讨会，在大学教师和领导之间进行协作和分享最佳实践，以支持和加强扩大工程参与的努力。这项研究将揭示危机期间和危机之后的临时和/或新政策和实践如何影响URM工程学院的职业轨迹。鉴于寻求工程最终学位的URM人数和URM工程教师人数已经持平，这项工作迫在眉睫。本研究将为大学的程序和政策修订/扩充提供建议，旨在确保教师在当前和紧急危机期间和之后取得成功。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest, financial and other crises, it is important to understand the impacts of such events on higher education. In particular, close attention must be paid to the impact these events have on underrepresented minority (URM) faculty representation in engineering, already of grave concern before the pandemic. This work aims to ensure that their voices are heard and reflected in policy change impacting their career trajectories. This project will utilize a holistic approach to gathering data from URM engineering faculty, especially women, from a variety of institution types, (e.g. Hispanic Serving Institutions, Predominately White Institutions, and Historically Black Colleges & Universities). The voices of these faculty will be used to inform policy makers in academia of multiple aspects of the convergence of multiple crises on the professional outcomes for URM engineering faculty.This work will be at the forefront of research investigating policy development and implementation related to URM engineering faculty sustainability and advancement. It aims to inform systematic, long-term and doable plans addressing potential further disruption and/or lasting change in the Academy. This project will be accomplished by (1) collecting data of the lived experiences during these crises and sharing URM engineering faculty insights about the impact to their personal lives and professional careers; (2) building a dataset of interim and current university policies related to themes determined from data collection/analysis; (3) using the data to inform policy change and to energize current initiatives to support retention of URM engineering faculty and (4) hosting a virtual colloquium for collaboration and sharing of best practices among university faculty and leaders for supporting and strengthening efforts for broadening participation in engineering. This research will reveal how interim and/or new policies and practices during and after a crisis can impact the career trajectories of URM engineering faculty. This work is urgent given the fact that the number of URMs seeking terminal degrees in engineering and the number of URM engineering faculty has flat-lined. This study will provide recommendations for procedure and policy revisions/augmentation for universities aimed at ensuring faculty success during and after current and emergent crises.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.