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Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) are important elements of a sustainability mindset. As part of an initiative to develop a new program in Sustainability Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and to evaluate the growth of a sustainability mindset among participants, we performed a qualitative analysis of results from a cohort of first year students (5 men, 2 women) who completed a 1-credit JEDI seminar as part of their enrollment in the program. Based on coding student essays, we identified three themes that students expressed that indicate their development of understanding JEDI principles: (a) Diversity and Inclusion: Integration of Diverse Perspectives; (b) Equity, Justice, and Accessibility; and (c) Community-Centric Approach, although the evidence also suggests that not all students fluently apply these ideas in a problem-solving context. Overall, the results suggest that the 1-credit seminar is effective to build essential literacy of JEDI, which will be instrumental in future work in sustainability engineering and design.
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Student-led institutional change for diversity and inclusion: Insights from the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Ambassador program.
This practice brief describes a model for pursuing student-led institutional change focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. While the literature emphasizes the importance of student agency, most diversity and educational initiatives still tend to happen to or for students rather than in partnership with them. Meanwhile, student organizations and student activism are legitimately helping improve the university but amount to uncompensated labor. We highlight the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Ambassador program, which engages undergraduate engineering students in efforts of student-led institutional change focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher engineering education. Informed by Youth Participatory Action Research, we discuss the challenges and insights associated with five main aspects of the program: (1) monetary support, (2) student selection, (3) training, (4) mentored project work, and (5) impact and communication with the community. Finally, we provide implications from the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Ambassador program for higher education and engineering education diversity support programs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2318338
- PAR ID:
- 10544784
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Psychological Association
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Diversity in Higher Education
- ISSN:
- 1938-8926
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- youth participatory action research institutional change undergraduate students engineering diversity
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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It is important for future engineers to understand themselves in relation to the many cultural influences they may encounter during their career, and to confront their own biases when interacting with colleagues whose cultural backgrounds are different from their own. This paper describes and evaluates a series of nine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) workshops developed and implemented during the summer of 2022 for high school and entering first-year college students enrolled in the Research, Academics, and Mentoring Pathways (RAMP) sixweek engineering summer bridge program at University of Massachusetts Lowell. The workshops incorporated activities designed to create an environment fostering respect, belonging, and acceptance to make teamwork more inclusive and effective. Each workshop was based on collaborative learning and used a broad range of strategies to engage students as active participants in learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion within the context of teamwork. To develop the workshops, the facilitators aligned the activities with key themes from chapters in the book From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for All [1]. The summer bridge program was evaluated using quantitative and qualitative data collected throughout the program and upon its conclusion tracking students’ reactions and levels of engagement in each of the program components. This included a pre-survey, mid-semester survey, post-survey, and weekly journal prompts on Google Classroom. We also used the Universality-Diversity scale [2] to measure any pre-post changes in students’ attitudes towards diversity. With regard to the workshops, an analysis of student responses indicated a high level of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Students reported they enjoyed getting to know each other better and that the DEI activities were interactive, educational, and engaging.more » « less
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It is important for future engineers to understand themselves in relation to the many cultural influences they may encounter during their career, and to confront their own biases when interacting with colleagues whose cultural backgrounds are different from their own. This paper describes and evaluates a series of nine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) workshops developed and implemented during the summer of 2022 for high school and entering first-year college students enrolled in the Research, Academics, and Mentoring Pathways (RAMP) six week engineering summer bridge program at University of Massachusetts Lowell. The workshops incorporated activities designed to create an environment fostering respect, belonging, and acceptance to make teamwork more inclusive and effective. Each workshop was based on collaborative learning and used a broad range of strategies to engage students as active participants in learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion within the context of teamwork. To develop the workshops, the facilitators aligned the activities with key themes from chapters in the book From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for All [1]. The summer bridge program was evaluated using quantitative and qualitative data collected throughout the program and upon its conclusion tracking students’ reactions and levels of engagement in each of the program components. This included a pre-survey, mid-semester survey, post-survey, and weekly journal prompts on Google Classroom. We also used the Universality-Diversity scale [2] to measure any pre-post changes in students’ attitudes towards diversity. With regard to the workshops, an analysis of student responses indicated a high level of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Students reported they enjoyed getting to know each other better and that the DEI activities were interactive, educational, and engaging.more » « less
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Purpose: Identifying the inequities underrepresented groups face in undergraduate engineering education and addressing these inequities is commonly in the hands of faculty and staff rather than the students who experience them firsthand. Seeking to shift away from this dynamic and empower students to name and challenge the oppression they face, we launched the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Ambassador Program at a large Hispanic-Serving Institution in the Southeastern United States. JEDI is a co-curricular program that employs undergraduate engineering students to engage in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion projects with the guidance of a graduate student or university support staff mentor. In this paper, we investigate the impact and limitations of this attempt at liberatory pedagogy through analyzing exit interviews with the alumni from the first two years of the program. Framework: This study is informed by liberative pedagogy, which facilitates critical consciousness and supports students in bringing their whole selves to a learning space to expand their critical capacities. One of the primary goals in creating JEDI was to provide engineering students space to realize and name the oppression they face and support them in designing their own projects that seek to challenge oppression. This paper investigates our attempt at operationalizing liberatory pedagogy through JEDI. Methods: The first author conducted 80–150-minute semi-structured interviews with program alumni. The interview protocol was informed by constructs from liberative pedagogy, focusing on participants' experiences in the program. The first author utilized thematic coding to identify salient themes across the interviews. Results: The analysis of the interview data revealed several successes and shortcomings related to operationalizing liberative pedagogy. One theme related to the successes was that participants expressed that JEDI offered a safe, welcoming environment in which they could embrace their marginalized identities and freely express their ideas. This finding, along with other themes that will be discussed in the paper, speak to the positive impact of the program. However, one theme related to shortcomings was that participants spoke extensively about the positive impact JEDI had on them as individuals, but they did not express that they saw their projects as having a significant external impact. We see this as a limitation regarding the program engaging the students in liberatory praxis within their local communities. Significance: Findings from this study provide insight into the impact liberative pedagogy has on engineering students and the challenges of operationalizing liberative pedagogy in a formal university context. These results could aid the engineering education community as we continue to search for ways to support and empower students.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000618
