University of Dayton
PA-7: Support for Future Faculty Diversity

The School of Engineering's Strategic Plan calls for increasing and supporting faculty diversity of women and underrepresented domestic minorities. To this end, the school has appointed an Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff Development and has begun a marketing and recruiting campaign, attending Engineering conferences with the specific purpose of marketing to prospective faculty. The school also hosts lunch and learn opportunities at other Engineering schools as opportunities to interact with faculty and promote the University of Dayton to underrepresented groups. The school has changed its on-boarding process and created first-year faculty development programs to support new faculty arrivals, including underrepresented groups. The Associate Dean also recruits women and minorities for university-wide leadership training programs.

To support underrepresented students exploring careers as future faculty members, the School has multiple initiatives to inspire underrepresented and female students to consider pursuing their PhD to build the “faculty pipeline”. The Diversity Engineering Center supports female, minority, and international engineering students with programming that includes developing skills and familiarity with graduate school application and “survival”. We have approximately 130 students in the Minority Engineering Program and of the 130, we specifically engage about 50 each year, our 1st and 2nd year students, in at least 1 workshop per semester dedicated to providing exposure to students currently pursuing their Masters and/or PhD, as well as discussing the process for how to find Undergraduate research opportunities as well as how to find and apply for graduate schools to encourage this as a potential career path option.

The Minority Leaders Program for domestic minority students provides research opportunities. Last year 43 students participated in undergraduate research through the Minority Leaders Scholarship Program with five of those students working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base last summer. Two students are currently being supported in the UD MS in Materials Engineering Program and two graduating seniors have applied to participate in the program.

The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience includes paid summer research opportunities for students plus professional development around graduate school. We had 12 students participate in the SURE program last summer.

All of these programs are taking steps to build a more diverse future faculty from underrepresented groups by increasing the supply of faculty candidates, starting with inspiring undergraduates to explore and become familiar with graduate school options and research experiences.