Reflecting on 10 years of Centralized Engineering Student Diversity Initiatives (Experience)

Abstract The IDEA Engineering Student Center at the University of California San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering was established in 2010 to focus on engineering student diversity and inclusion initiatives following a series of racially charged incidents affecting our campus' Black students. From its inception, the IDEA Center aimed to focus on 1) outreach, 2) recruitment and yield, 3) academic success and enrichment, and 4) retention and graduation for underrepresented minority (URM) students. Through the lens of nonprofit organizational lifecycles, the IDEA Center transitioned from Idea to Start-up to Growth during the past 10 years. The 2020-2021 academic year was pivotal for the Center for several reasons. First, it was the Center's 10-year anniversary and the beginning of a strategic planning process. Moreover, the Black Lives Matter movement reinvigorated attention to how the Center can support the success of Black students and other underrepresented groups in the Jacobs School of Engineering. These have pushed the Center to review and renew our work to ensure continued relevance and impact. Mirroring our shift through the Idea-Startup-Growth stages, our assessment and evaluation needs have also shifted. Over the past 10 years, the IDEA Center established and grew several programs with a focus on establishing theory-based academic success and retention programs and conducting assessment to establish early evidence of program impact and ensure smooth implementation. Now as we build towards becoming a Mature organization over the next several years, we are looking to establish ongoing systems for data collection and reporting to tell a cohesive story of impact in alignment with school-wide goals. This paper will discuss reflections and lessons learned from the development and growth of the IDEA Center, with a focus on the development of specific programs and considerations that remain for us to address in the future. We hope that this paper and presentation can inform other universities that may be trying to initiate, grow, or centralize student diversity initiatives within engineering schools or divisions.