Measuring the Effectiveness of a Series of Workshops Focusedon the Retention of Underrepresented Engineering Faculty

摘要

With a workforce that is heavy with engineers nearing retirement age and an engineeringundergraduate population growth rate that is fairly flat, administrators will have to focus moreand more on recruitment and retention. Women and minorities have long been underrepresentedin engineering and are a potential source of future engineers. A diverse faculty would, of course,be an asset in getting and keeping a more diverse student body. However, the pool of women andminority engineering faculty is quite limited. These faculty usually do not have the benefit ofsimilar mentors and peers at their institutions on whom they can rely for coaching and support.To help level the playing field, a series of three-day workshops have been sponsored by theNational Science Foundation for the past decade, occurring every other year since 1995.Participants of these workshops are women and minority engineering faculty who are in the firstthree years of a tenure-track appointment and PhD candidates actively looking to becomeeducators. The benefits of the workshops include enhanced participant awareness of research andfunding opportunities and what is required to be successful in academe (teaching, publishing,outreach, etc.); diversification of participants' research program goals; and development of anetwork of mentors and peers who have encountered similar challenges in advancing withinacademe (specifically within their own technical fields). In order to access the success of theseworkshops, participants were given a pre-workshop and a post-workshop survey. The results ofthese surveys indicate that the workshops’ goals are being met. The workshop and the results ofthe surveys will be discussed in detail.