A Survey Of Career Pathways Of Engineering Deans In The United States: Strategies For Leadership Development

The career pathways of deans in higher education seem to follow the traditional model in academia from a senior faculty position and/or department chair. This however may be different from deans in engineering education. The goal of this survey research is to assess the career paths of current Deans of Colleges/Schools of Engineering in the United States. The survey discovered that about two thirds follow the normative (traditional) career path for deans, suggest leadership attributes of good communication and fiscal management experiences are the most important, and indicate current and future challenges of fundraising and faculty development are critical issues in higher education.

Faculty Members Weigh In on the Gender Divide in Academia

In 2001, a roundtable on gender disparities for female professors in higher education was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The focus of the roundtable was how best to ensure women professors experience the same opportunities, recognition and rewards as their male counterparts. Some three years later, a few faculty members from various disciplines weigh in with various perspectives on the current state of the gender gap

Persistence of African American Females in Engineering: The Mathematics Identity Factor

To continue as global science and technological leaders, the United States is motivated to create a diverse, engineering workforce. One way of diversifying the engineering workforce is to address the disparity of women engineers. Although concerted efforts to improve retention rates of women in engineering are ongoing, women have earned only 5.6% of all undergraduate engineering degrees, with only 1% attributed to African American women (NSF, 2015b). African American women are commonly included in racial or gender-focused studies on persistence; however, few studies assess the effect of multiple identities to persistence. This exploratory study examined the relationship of persistence, measured by intent to persist, to multiple identities (social, professional, and racial) of African American female engineering students. Forward regression analyses were conducted and results indicated that the participant’s mathematical identities were more salient to them than their racial or gender identities. Also, the values these women placed on being an engineer and belonging to the group were principal aspects of their professional identity. Additionally, negative affect and stereotype threat were found significant predictors of intent to persist. Keywords: women engineers, persistence, identity, African American engineer

T5-A: Introducing the Top-Down-Top Pedagogy: Systems Thinking that Inspires, Engages, and Promotes Persistence

Aircraft detail design capstone course in Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University employs group projects of four to six students and is designed to provide real world experience in structural design process, by designing and analyzing and documenting an aerospace structure. This paper reports on a few innovations in the course to provide industry like experience to students namely (1) Assigning functional engineering roles and (2) Industry style performance evaluations to inform grading. Survey and observations indicate that students found assigning of engineering roles to be helpful in enhancing their experience, but did not benefit much from performance evaluations as implemented