NSF Award
2412193
The University of New Mexico’s School of Engineering will establish a Center for Equity in Engineering, building on the institution's 30+ years of experience as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to enhance equity for Indigenous and Black students, faculty, and staff, while also deepening its commitments to increase equity for Hispanic, first-generation, and low-income students. By changing how we teach to better reflect students’ lived realities and local contexts, by enhancing connections between student support services and classroom experiences, by skilling up faculty and staff to better serve students of all backgrounds, and by incorporating equity into performance evaluations and reward systems, we will decrease inequity in student experiences, learning outcomes, time to degree, and graduation rates. As a School of Engineering with majority-minority enrollment, enhancing student success and closing equity gaps will diversify the engineering profession. As more institutions become Hispanic enrolling over time with national demographic shifts, this CEE will be positioned to demonstrate what equity work can look like at an HSI. <br/><br/>The Center will (1) build infrastructure for equity through leadership accountability, resource management, data and metric development, partnership enhancement, and shifting reward structures and cultures in the School of Engineering and (2) deploy equity-centered pedagogies and (co)curricular strategies to enhance student success by motivating and equipping faculty and staff to focus on proven equity-enhancing practices that include and engage students, foster identity development, and provide equitable opportunities for technical and professional development. Our center planning will apply change theories and strategies refined within the engineering education community, including (1) shifting faculty reward structures (including tenure and promotion) to support and create accountability for equity and student success; (2) building a community of practice that facilitates transformational anti-racism and anti-classism work; (3) enhancing partnerships for smoother pathways into engineering from high school and two-year settings; and (4) strengthening our capacity for place-based engineering projects that demonstrate the value of engineering by, for, and with local communities. Sense of place is a core value in the state of New Mexico and at UNM; centering querencia (a Spanish word without direct English translation denoting deep connections among land, belonging, and identity) as a place-based pedagogy specific to New Mexico, we will advance equity knowledge and practice in engineering, forge links between cultural and engineering identities, and engage new conceptions of engineering informed by culture and place in both research and education. We will leverage our Engineering Student Success Center, campus cultural and diversity centers, UNM’s Division for Equity and Inclusion, ADVANCE program, and Center for Teaching and Learning, as well as deepen external partnerships with regional two-year colleges, pre-college organizations, and community groups. Student demographic diversity, persistence, and sense of belonging will increase, as well as course pass rates, student learning outcomes, career readiness, and time to graduation. While querencia is operationalized specifically in New Mexico as an avenue to advance belonging and success in engineering, our model of engaging place-based, asset-based, and culturally-sustaining approaches to connect engineering and cultural identities will readily propagate to other places and cultures. Partnerships with pre-college organizations and two-year colleges will expand, with improved pathways emerging for students, further diversifying our enrollment and the profession. This ecosystem of partners will extend well beyond our local community into national networks, facilitating the propagation of findings beyond our institution and region. The structural and cultural changes driven by the CEE will transform lives and communities by further increasing the realized social mobility of our graduates, and provide a replicable model for other institutions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
