Symposium for Engineering School Deans to Increase the Retention of Women and Underrepresented Minority Students

在这个时代，从白宫到硅谷的科技巨头都把工程描述为美国竞争力的关键，并呼吁大学培养更多、更广泛的工程师群体，在这个时代，高等教育机构很难使战略和行动与这些成果的实现相一致。这项研究非常清楚多样性对创新和发明的价值。创造力的源泉不是从一个水龙头流出的。相反，它们在于个人为团队带来的不同视角、背景和才华。然而，尽管几十年的努力和数百万美元的联邦资金，在获得工程学学位的女性和代表不足的少数族裔学生(非裔美国人、拉丁裔和美洲原住民)的百分比方面，指针几乎没有变化。2016年，女性获得的工程学学士学位占美国授予的学位总数的19.9%。十年前，这一比例为19.3%。西班牙裔学生获得了10.7%的工程学学位。在同一时期，非裔美国人获得工程学学士学位的比例从5%下降到4%。增加向代表人数不足的学生授予学位的数量和百分比的关键是大幅提高这些群体的毕业率。全国黑人工程师协会将为100名教唆认可的工程学校的院长召开一次会议，目的是分享关于最有效的机构干预措施、核心战略和关键概念的研究，以留住和毕业工程学学士学位课程中代表不足的少数族裔。工程学院院长增加留住妇女和代表不足的少数族裔学生座谈会将解决留住妇女的障碍，方法是向大学工程系的学术领导人，即那些在增加留住方面最有能力推动变革的人，提供目前可获得的丰富研究成果。NSBE汇编了一份白皮书，系统地总结了针对代表性不足学生的成功留住策略的研究成果，为实现卓越学业和工程学的成功铺平了道路(Reid，Ross，&Amp；Yates，2015)。研究人员采访了有成功让未被充分代表的少数族裔(URM)学生成功毕业的大学管理人员，并回顾了有关干预措施的研究研究。基于这一庞大的知识体系，NSBE确定了一系列干预措施，事实证明，这些干预措施有助于未被充分代表的学生在工程学领域取得成功。全体会议和分组会议将围绕成功的干预措施和为这些干预措施提供信息所必需的概念来组织：1)机构或部门层面的干预措施：机构领导力参与、气候和教师发展；2)核心战略：夏季过渡项目、学者队列计划；协作学习环境；早期警报系统；以及促进的研究小组；3)关键概念：自我效能和认同感。会议主持人和主旨演讲者将从在该主题领域实施了成功项目的大学中邀请。

In an era when leaders from the White House to Silicon Valley tech giants portray engineering as critical to America's competitiveness - and are calling upon universities to graduate a bigger, broader group of engineers - institutions of higher education struggle to align strategies and actions with achievement of these outcomes. The research is quite clear about the value of diversity to innovation and invention. The wellsprings of creativity do not flow from a single tap. Rather, they lie in the different perspectives, backgrounds and talents that individuals bring to a team. However, despite decades of efforts and millions of dollars in federal funding, the needle has barely moved in terms of the percentages of women and underrepresented minority students (African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans) earning engineering degrees. In 2016, women earned 19.9 percent of engineering bachelor's degrees awarded in the U.S. A decade earlier, the proportion was 19.3 percent. Hispanic students earned 10.7% of engineering degrees. Over the same period, the proportion of engineering bachelor's degrees earned by African Americans fell to 4 percent from 5 percent. Key to increasing the number and percentage of degrees awarded to underrepresented students is to dramatically increase the completion rates of these groups. The National Society of Black Engineers is convening a conference for 100 Deans of ABET-accredited engineering schools for the purpose of sharing research on the most effective institutional interventions, core strategies, and critical concepts in retaining and graduating underrepresented minorities in engineering bachelor's degree programs. The Symposium for Engineering School Deans to Increase the Retention of Women and Underrepresented Minority Students will address barriers to retention by bringing the wealth of research findings that are currently available to the academic leaders of university engineering department, i.e., those who are in the strongest position to move change forward in increasing retention. NSBE compiled a systematic synthesis of research available on successful retention strategies for underrepresented students into a white paper, Paving the Way: Institutional Interventions for Academic Excellence and Success in Engineering (Reid, Ross, & Yates, 2015). The researchers interviewed university administrators with experience in successfully graduating underrepresented minority (URM) students in engineering and reviewed research studies about the interventions. Based on this prodigious body of knowledge, NSBE identified a list of interventions that have proven to facilitate the success of underrepresented students in engineering. The Plenary and breakout sessions will be organized around successful interventions and concepts that are necessary to inform these interventions: 1) Institution or Department Level Interventions: institutional leadership engagement; climate; and faculty development; 2) Core Strategies: summer bridge programs, scholar cohort programs; collaborative learning environments; early alert systems; and facilitated study groups; 3) Critical Concepts: self-efficacy; and identity. Session presenters and keynote speakers will be invited from the universities that have implemented successful programs in the topic areas.