Impacts of diversity and inclusion initiatives in a civil and environmental engineering department

In 2016, the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at Rowan University was awarded a Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant from the National Science Foundation. The goal for the RED grant was to allow institutions to improve the inclusion of minorities over the course of five years through changes in curriculum, policy, institutional structure, and institutional culture. The CEE Department used this opportunity to establish a research group who would focus on helping underrepresented and underserved populations of students through an institutional means. The researchers sought out a variety of ways to enable inclusive practices within the CEE Department and the greater institution. Surveys and interviews were conducted to include faculty and student perspectives to address inclusivity, workshops were held to help faculty understand examples of inclusive practices inclusive practices, and partnerships with other campus offices helped with making policy changes that would affect the department and the institution at large. Currently, the researchers are in the fourth year of the grant. The CEE Department has undergone evaluation of what impacts can be felt by students and student interviews have occurred that allow the researchers to gain first hand student insight for what the climate of diversity is like for them. As in previous years, this poster intends to show a variety of the developments made by the researchers and the CEE Department. The poster will feature information on the changing student demographics, student perception of the climate of diversity, the impact evaluations of the CEE Department's efforts and an overview of larger institution wide efforts being made to positively impact the entire engineering college and university. As the grant enters its final years, the poster will also discuss plans on engaging the broader engineering academic community in order to establish best practices for implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives in other programs.