Trends in the underrepresentation of women of color faculty in engineering (2005–2018)
Event Date: | July 31, 2022 |
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Authors: | Main, J. B., McGee, E. O., Cox, M. F., Tan, L., & Berdanier, C. G. P. |
Journal: | Journal of Diversity in Higher Education |
Findings indicate that there were slight growths in the representation of African American/Black, Native American/Native Hawaiian, and Hispanic/Latina women engineering faculty. The low representation of WoC is also evident among engineering PhDs. Changes in the shares of WoC in assistant, associate, and full professor ranks and in the production of PhDs provide insights for future demographic shifts in engineering education. Greater efforts and investments are needed in the recruitment of WoC into PhD programs and, subsequently, as assistant professors across engineering disciplines. Although interventions and programs aimed at helping increase the participation of WoC faculty in engineering have made progress, findings suggest that larger scale structural and cultural changes are needed to shift prevailing demographic trends in the engineering professoriate, including expanding student access to doctoral education in engineering. Research findings have the potential to provide foundational information for developing strategies to increase the representation of WoC engineering PhDs and faculty.