Our project investigated the conditions needed for inclusive spaces in engineering education. Our interdisciplinary team, representing engineering and humanities, collaborated to understand conditions supporting LGBTQ+ engineering students and how they prepare students to lead positive change. Engineering schools are notoriously inhospitable to LGBTQ+ people, with costly results for LGBTQ+ students and society. The emotional toll of being an LGBTQ+ engineer is so great that it threatens to drive LGBTQ+ engineers out of the field. Their departure from engineering for reasons that have nothing to do with qualification only makes the field more homogenous and therefore less creative, innovative, and risk-taking, at the same time diminishing an already underrepresented population in engineering. Our goal was to fill a research gap about how engineering cultures can support these same engineers.

We mined data from a 2016 campus climate survey, and conducted individual and focus group interviews with LGBTQ+ engineering students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). We conducted in-depth interviews with a variety of faculty, staff, administrators, and alums to learn more about the intentionality and evolution of the climate at WPI.  We learned that cooperative learning pedagogies contributed positively to LGBTQ+ students’ experiences, growth, and attitudes, and that a supportive climate results from a complex relationship among collaborative teaching and learning practices, co-curricular activities, caring student services, pedagogy, and history.

This project identified LGBTQ+ engineering students at WPI, many of whom are remarkably comfortable, satisfied, emotionally intelligent and articulate about their developmental experiences. These students came to WPI with little knowledge of the campus climate. During orientation, students see faculty, staff, and upper-class peer advisors wearing nametags that include pronouns, they attend diversity programming, and the student LGTBQ+ advocacy group is very visible during orientation having its own welcoming reception.  As students progress through the curriculum, they experience the collaborative learning environment that tends to value students for their ability to contribute to team projects and is less concerned with gender identity or sexual orientation. However, although the project-based curriculum plays a critical role providing an intellectual space for student development, it is not sufficient.  Equally important is the support network that evolved with our projects program, particularly as the extensive global program expanded. This includes a proactive and LGBTQ+ friendly Student Development and Counseling Center, a Residential Life staff that provides programming and gender neutral living spaces, a career center with specific support for LGBTQ+ students, a new ID system allowing students to choose their preferred name, and as of this year, a Lavender Commencement ceremony.

We’ve disseminated results in peer-reviewed venues including a paper at ASEE, two presentations at CoNECD conferences, a panel at an AAC&U conference, two shorter features (Inside Higher Education and The Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research), and a workshop at WPI’s Summer Institute for Project-Based Learning. Two archival journal manuscripts are nearing completion.

This study identified practices and spaces conducive to the growth, success, and self-confidence of LGBTQ+ engineers, as well as understanding how their professional formation transpired. In identifying those supportive practices the research also identified the same experiences that help develop the emotional intelligence and cross-cultural sensitivity and communication that will support all engineers, including but not exclusively other underrepresented populations. The broader impacts derived from this research for transforming engineering education are summarized below. Inclusive spaces come from a university having a pervasive academic structure and culture that is team-based, grounded in collaboration, includes authentic problem solving and project-based learning, and emphasizes discipline-specific learning integrated within a human, social, and cultural context. Specific practices include:

Collaborative learning with support for well-functioning teams: Collaborative teams that bring students together from different disciplines, residence halls, and experiences can help to shape an inclusive, socially accepting campus culture.

Engineering assignments that include a social component: Engineering assignments set within a societal context give students opportunities to learn engineering content within their broader human circumstances.

The importance of the humanities and social sciences within an engineering curriculum: When engineering students encounter the humanities and social sciences in meaningful ways, they are more likely to see the work of engineering as belonging to the whole person and the whole society, and to work towards inclusivity.

A curriculum that gives autonomy to students: Students who develop expertise on socio-technical issues can become expert consultants to campus decision-makers.

Close alignment between faculty and student support services: The skills that promote strong project-based learning outcomes are both academic and social, and must be taught by a diverse and collaborative team from across campus.

The importance of openly queer faculty and staff: The presence of well-regarded LGBTQ+ faculty and staff on campus helps establish an inclusive environment for a range of sexual identities.

The efforts of allies to advance an inclusive environment: Allies play an important role in establishing safe spaces and in advocating for fairness and inclusivity.

Last Modified: 07/10/2019
Modified by: David Dibiasio