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Developing Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives and Measuring the Effects of a Pandemic in a Civil and Environmental Engineering Department

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topics

Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

6

DOI

10.18260/1-2--36941

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/36941

Download Count

286

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Paper Authors

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Tiago R. Forin Rowan University

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Tiago Forin is a PhD candidate in Engineering Education and researcher at Purdue University affiliated with XRoads Research Group, the Global Engineering Program and the Office of Institutional Research, Assessment, and Effectiveness. He received a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Florida State University and a Master's degree in environmental engineering from Purdue University.

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Stephanie Farrell Rowan University

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Dr. Stephanie Farrell is Interim Dean and of the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering and Professor and Founding Chair of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University (USA). Prior to 2016 she was a faculty member in Chemical Engineering at Rowan for eighteen years. Dr. Farrell has contributed to engineering education through her work in inductive pedagogy, spatial skills, and inclusion and diversity. She has been honored by the American Society of Engineering Education with several teaching awards such as the 2004 National Outstanding Teaching Medal and the 2005 Quinn Award for experiential learning, and she was 2014-15 Fulbright Scholar in Engineering Education at Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland). She has been awarded Honoris Causa from the International Society for Engineering Pedagogy, and has received that society's highest honor, the Nikolai Tesla Award for outstanding contributions to engineering pedagogy.

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Harriet Hartman Rowan University

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Professor of Sociology, Chair of Sociology and Anthropology Department. Co-p.i. of RED NSF RevED project at Rowan University. ֵEditor-in-chief, Contemporary Jewry.

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Sarah K. Bauer Rowan University

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Dr. Sarah Bauer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rowan University. Dr. Bauer holds a doctorate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Her primary research interests are: water and wastewater treatment, renewable energy technologies, and pollution prevention. Her work focuses on developing techniques for the production of clean energy and water. She has also worked on a variety of projects to enhance engineering education. Her most recent project included introducing the humanities into environmental engineering education through a National Endowment for the Humanities project. Dr. Bauer is an active member of ASEE and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and currently serves as the Faculty Advisor for Rowan University’s Student Chapter of SWE.

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Stephanie Lezotte Rowan University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-1270-7949

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Dr. Stephanie Lezotte currently serves as the Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies at Rowan University. She received her Ph.D. in education, with a concentration in postsecondary and higher education. Using organizational theory, she is interested in systems and structures that contribute to the oppression of underserved and underrepresented college students, particular STEM students. She is active in the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE).

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Abstract

The Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at Midsized Northeastern University was awarded The National Science Foundation’s Revolutionizing Engineering and computer science Departments (RED) grant in 2016 with the hopes of allowing engineering programs to improve the inclusion of minorities over the course of five years. The CEE Department used this opportunity to create a research group called Revolutionizing Engineering Diversity (RevED) that focuses on all underrepresented and underserved groups. The researchers used the grant to help change admissions as well as incorporate inclusive pedagogical practices. Currently, RevED is in the fifth year of the grant and has since spread out to utilize the Engineering Education Department and the Faculty Development Center to help broaden the impact of the grant to other students outside of the CEE Department. The RevED researchers were successful in helping develop a certification program for faculty and staff members to participate in. While there have been positive developments, the research group had to look at the effects of COVID-19 on the lives of students. RevED has utilized data regarding the impacts of the pandemic and will be looking to further develop insight on student experiences. While the poster will feature information on the changing student demographics and student perception of the climate of diversity, the impact of the pandemic will also be shown to see how students are affected and how to better address the needs of underrepresented and underserved students.

Forin, T. R., & Farrell, S., & Hartman, H., & Bauer, S. K., & Lezotte, S. (2021, July), Developing Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives and Measuring the Effects of a Pandemic in a Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36941

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