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<td style="width:235px;padding-right:10px;padding-top:6px" valign="top"><img src="https://www.universityworldnews.com/images/articles/20241122075114204_5.jpg?r=872853255" style="" alt=""><div style="border-top:2px solid #000;;border-bottom:2px solid #000;margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:18px;padding:8px;">Join us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UniversityWorldNews/" target="_fb"><b>Facebook</b></a><br>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/uniworldnews" target="_tw"><b>Twitter</b></a></div> </td> <td style="width:489px;margin-left:10px;border-left:1px solid #999;padding-left:10px;padding-right:10px" valign="top"> <div><div class="article-body"><div class="story-country"><div style="font-size:20px" class="section-head-white-on-dark botmar8">Sponsored Article</div></div> <img src="https://www.universityworldnews.com/mobile/bookmark_icon44.png" alt="bookmark" id="bmi" style="float:right" onclick="bookmark('20241122075114204','Unlocking potential – Diversity initiatives in STEM education');"> <h1 class="botmar4 biggerheading">Unlocking potential – Diversity initiatives in STEM education</h1> <div class="byline-country botmar12"><b><a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/fullsearch.php?mode=search&writer=Dr+Jeffrey+Fergus" style="white-space: nowrap">Dr Jeffrey Fergus</a> and <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/fullsearch.php?mode=search&writer=Dr+Rochelle+Williams" style="white-space: nowrap">Dr Rochelle Williams</a>, <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/fullsearch.php?mode=search&writer=ABET" style="white-space: nowrap">ABET</a></b>  <span style="white-space: nowrap">22 November 2024</span></div> <div style="height:39px"><script src="https://platform.linkedin.com/in.js" type="text/javascript">lang: en_US</script> <div style="float:left;margin-right:8px"><script type="IN/Share" data-url="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20241122075114204"></script></div><div style="float:left;margin-right:8px"><a href="https://twitter.com/share?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" class="twitter-share-button" data-show-count="true">Tweet</a><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/share_button.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.universityworldnews.com%2Fpost.php%3Fstory%3D20241122075114204&layout=button_count&size=small&mobile_iframe=true&width=106&height=28&appId" width="106" height="28" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe></div> <I>This article is promoted by <B>ABET</B>.</I><br /> <br /> With its shortage of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates, the United States is struggling to hire enough qualified professionals to meet the demands of many domestic industries, the global quality assurance organisation ABET has acknowledged.<br /> <br /> According to one estimate by the Washington DC-based Semiconductor Industry Association, in a <a href="https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SIA_July2023_ChippingAway_website.pdf" target="_new">report published in 2023</a>, there will be a STEM shortage of approximately 1.4 million technicians, computer scientists and engineers in the US by 2030.<br /> <br /> Against this backdrop, diversity and inclusivity in STEM fields are crucial, both to reach a wider pool of talent and to enhance research and innovation through greater heterogeneity of thought.<br /> <br /> Here, Dr Jeffrey Fergus, dean of the Batten College of Engineering at Old Dominion University in Virginia, and former chair of the Engineering Accreditation Commission at ABET, and Dr Rochelle L Williams, executive director of the California-based Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity and a former director of programmes and research at ABET, share their views on the chief barriers to diverse representation in STEM fields and what is being done to overcome them.<br /> <br /> <b>Dr Jeffrey Fergus</b><br /> <br /> Having been involved with ABET for around 20 years, I have witnessed the growing recognition of the need for, and benefits of, greater diversity in STEM education, particularly in the field of engineering.<br /> <br /> Increasing representation of people from diverse backgrounds across STEM subjects unlocks new sources of talent, and greater diversity of thought contributes to more innovation and better outcomes in STEM industries, which ultimately benefit everyone.<br /> <br /> Part of the challenge to widening access to these subjects is that the barriers to entry vary a great deal, and while some are clear, others are less so. ABET’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility Advisory Council – the IDEA Council – is working to identify the key roadblocks, so that these can be addressed.<br /> <br /> For some, it’s purely a socio-economic problem – literally not being able to afford the tuition fees to study STEM courses. For others, the educational background that they come from means they’re just not ready to start a higher education STEM course.<br /> <br /> For non-traditional students who go to college later in life, the typical student experience doesn’t necessarily work for them.<br /> <br /> There are also wider cultural barriers, that are harder to pinpoint.<br /> <br /> Groups that are generally under-represented in higher education overall are even more so in STEM subjects. For women, however, who make up more than half of the US student population, their absence from STEM fields is particularly noticeable, although female student numbers are slowly increasing – today making up 25% to 26% of the engineering student body.<br /> <br /> Efforts by diversity-focused organisations and individual higher education institutions to promote recruitment, retention and rewards for students from under-represented backgrounds in STEM subjects have had some success in improving diversity – for example, in biomedical engineering, which is approaching equitable representation, while environmentally focused engineering also attracts more diverse students.<br /> <br /> Getting more women into areas such as electrical and mechanical engineering, and attracting students from African American and other under-represented communities into engineering as a whole, has so far proved to be more challenging.<br /> <br /> Targeted initiatives are seeking to address this. For example, in my previous role as associate dean for undergraduate studies and programme assessment at Auburn University in Alabama, we had a programme called 100+ Women Strong which aimed to recruit, retain and reward women in engineering.<br /> <br /> We also ran an initiative called Engineer Together, which focused on trying to ensure the STEM educational climate was welcoming and inclusive for students from diverse backgrounds.<br /> <br /> I also oversaw a mandatory introduction to implicit bias for all freshmen (first-year students) as part of their orientation. Rather than putting the emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), we stressed that this was a professional skills session, teaching students how to work with people who are different to them and learning how to recognise bias.<br /> <br /> The learning environment is crucial when it comes to fostering diversity. Engineering is a tough subject, so if a student is struggling with the course but feels welcome and supported, they are more likely to persevere with their studies. But if that student isn’t sure they belong on that course, and there aren’t many people from a similar background around them, these students are less likely to persist.<br /> <br /> Ensuring an inclusive climate for diverse students is an objective that takes time to achieve.<br /> <br /> <b>Dr Rochelle L Williams</b><br /> <br /> Broadening access to STEM education for under-represented groups is a research area and practice I have dedicated pretty much my entire professional career to.<br /> <br /> Having attended HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) for my undergraduate and masters engineering programmes, while I experienced racial diversity at both the student and faculty level, I was used to being one of few women in my courses.<br /> <br /> But when it came to the start of my PhD studies, I was also the only black person, woman and student from an HBCU, which really opened my eyes to the lack of diversity and inclusive environments in STEM fields and inspired me to fight for change.<br /> <br /> I strongly believe that it is the responsibility of STEM professionals who are solving amazing problems for the benefit of every human being in the world that they understand the needs of all humans, rather than just a subset of people.<br /> <br /> Diversity fuels innovation, and innovation solves problems. If everyone in the room looks the same, has the same lived experience, and thinks the same, what you get is bland technology that really doesn’t stand up to the engineering challenges the world needs to resolve.<br /> <br /> Lack of diversity in STEM fields has been perpetuated because it is a systemic issue of inequity, and the fact that many students still experience the same type of environment in engineering programmes that I did 20 years ago is unacceptable.<br /> <br /> From my perspective, one of the biggest barriers to greater diversity representation in STEM subjects is access at a very basic level – many people in these groups just don’t know that a STEM career is an option, or what they need to do to prepare themselves to study a STEM subject at higher education level.<br /> <br /> This is no fault of the students or their parents, but of a system that has pre-determined what zip codes are worthy of the resources needed to put young students on a pathway towards a STEM degree.<br /> <br /> At the higher education level, bias and a culture of gatekeeping about who belongs in STEM discourages and dismisses students with minoritised identities from pursuing these degrees.<br /> <br /> This includes perceptions about capability, intelligence and interest in STEM based on the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic status, to name a few.<br /> <br /> But despite the obstacles, I’m happy to say that there are absolutely reasons to be hopeful. Identity-based STEM professional societies and organisations such as the Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity (GFSD), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), and the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN), were founded to support the national imperative to diversify the US science and engineering workforce.<br /> <br /> These organisations serve as ‘gatebreakers’, committed to tearing down gates, not just opening them, to diversify engineering education and workplaces.<br /> <br /> ABET has also been influential, as an accreditation body that understands the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), that has the power to shape how engineering and technology are taught, and how they are experienced in higher education institutions.<br /> <br /> Having had my first professional job with ABET, one of the things I’m proudest of is that ABET has never let the DEI conversation die, even as other parts of society have swept this issue aside.<br /> <br /> ABET is not prescriptive, so individual educational programmes can decide what values are prioritised when it comes to the formation of their students’ STEM identity and craft a curriculum that allows them to incorporate the benefits of DEI in the design process. ABET accreditation offers the mechanism to allow these programmes to make this part of their curriculum.<br /> <br /> At GFSD, we’re also focusing on initiatives we believe will drive change. For example, we award graduate students with identities that are under-represented in STEM fields with fellowships that provide them with opportunities to intern at national labs in the US, which is an amazing opportunity for their career progression.<br /> <br /> It’s also important to look beyond higher education at the industries diverse graduates are hopefully destined for.<br /> <br /> In 2024-25, I have the honour to be president of the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN), which focuses on advancing women in engineering workplaces, and I am also co-principal investigator on two National Science Foundation grants that support women in academia and industry: The ARC Network and Women of Color Engineering Collaborative.<br /> <br /> Both focus on systemic barriers women are facing in the workplace. These programmes are great examples of how academia, industry, the non-profit sector and the government can come together in meaningful and actionable ways to eradicate the chief systemic barriers to equitable representation in STEM.<br /> <br /> <span style="color:#0000CC"><I>This article is promoted by ABET.</I></span> </div><br><script src="https://www.universityworldnews.com/subscribe2.js"></script> <div style="background:#ffe57d;padding:8px" id="subform"> <span style="font-family:arial"><b>Receive email updates from UWN</b></span> <br> <input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" style="width:65%;font-size:16px" placeholder="enter your email address">   <input type="submit" style="background:#000;color:#fff;padding:4px;font-size:20px; border:1px solid #000;font-weight:normal;border-radius:8px;font-family:arial" name="action" id="signupbutton" value="Sign Up" onclick="return formCheck();"> <br> <input type="checkbox" id="globalnl" name="globalnl" value="1"> Global 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