Board 397: Sustainable Racial Equity: Creating a New Generation of Engineering Education DEI Leaders

Abstract The purpose of this project is to advance our understanding of the experiences, educational training, and research that supports the development of effective engineering education leaders assuming roles focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These roles include but are not limited to DEI University committee service, National Organizations focused on racial equity and the improvement of conditions for traditionally marginalized populations, DEI administrative roles in higher education, DEI advisory roles in funded projects, or DEI consulting work. In the context of this work, we conceptualize racial equity in engineering as a collection of outcomes, processes, and interpersonal treatments that are neither determined nor predicted by race or racial bias, that are sustainable and have a long-term impact. Despite efforts in the field to broaden participation and make engineering more equitable and inclusive, we still fall short of attracting and retaining students and faculty members from traditionally marginalized populations, especially at the large engineering Institutions (which drive overall numbers). Part of the problem is that DEI initiatives, programs, and research is not supported by strong institutional commitment and policies. In this paper, we report our updates on phase 1 of the project, which includes the conduction of a review of the literature to understand how DEI has been theorized in engineering education, and based on those theories, we describe the development of an interview protocol to understand the experiences, knowledge, and decision-making processes of DEI leaders. Similarly, we report on the development of criteria to be able to select our interview participants.