Our Commitment to Diversity Diversity Report
February 4, 2009

The objective of this report is to assess where the CEE Department stands with respect to diversity by comparison with national data, national trends, and with similar departments in other universities.   The results of this study lead to the conclusion that diversity in the CEE Department is fairly good, but could be improved in some areas. Based on comparisons with peers and other data, realistic goals are set for gender and minority diversity within the faculty and student body. Strategies to move the Department toward the goals are considered.

Faculty Diversity
Internal and National Comparison

The data for the CEE Department are compared to the data for the College of Engineering, University, and Nationwide CEE data in the table below. The National data were obtained from the ASEE Profiles of Engineering Colleges 2007. The comparison indicates that the CEE Department is below the University and national percent minority values and somewhat below the University value, but close to the National CEE value for women.

 Table I. Internal and National Comparison of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Diversity.

Comparison with Peer Programs
Table II below summarizes the faculty diversity for several CEE peer programs selected, for the most part, based on their similarity to Michigan Tech’s CEE Department. The National Data were obtained from the ASEE Profiles of Engineering Colleges 2007, and the peer university data were estimated from the CEE faculty listings on the various departmental web pages.

Table II. Comparison of Faculty Diversity with Peer Programs

The data indicate that even though Michigan Tech CEE is above the national average in faculty gender diversity, it is in the lower half of the identified peer departments with respect to faculty gender diversity. However, with respect to overall faculty minority diversity, Michigan Tech CEE ranks below most of the peer departments. While the African American, Hispanic, and Native American minorities are under represented minorities (i.e., their representation on faculties is less than their representation in the general U.S. population), the Asian minority is generally well represented on CEE faculties.

Student Body Diversity
Internal Gender Comparison
Table III compares the gender diversity of the CEE student body with the College of Engineering and University. The gender data is broken down by graduate and undergraduate. This distinction is of value because recruitment strategies for undergraduate students may differ from those used for graduate students.

Table III.  CEE Student Body Gender Balance, Internal Comparison

The CEE Department gender balance is good compared to the University and College of Engineering.  The one area where the Department could stand to improve is the undergraduate female enrollment.   The primary source of that increase will necessarily be in civil engineering (CE) students, since the environmental engineering program consistently has an approximate 50/50 gender balance.  The CE program tends to remain at about 20% female and is a larger percentage of the total enrollment.
At the writing of this document (Feb. 2009), the CEE graduate program is 31% female, 2% Asian American, 1% African American, 0% Hispanic American, and 0% Native American.  This data indicates that the Department needs to be reaching out to a broader spectrum of individuals for its graduate programs.   The graduate program is 28% international, which is a reasonable percentage.

Internal Minority Comparison
Table IV compares the minority composition of the undergraduate civil and environmental engineering student body with that of the entire University for fall 2007.

Table IV. Minority Composition of Undergraduate Student Body

Except for the fraction of Native Americans, the CEE and total Michigan Tech student body is much less diverse than the National Engineering student body.

External Comparison to Peer Departments
Table V compares the gender and minority composition of the Michigan Tech CEE baccalaureate graduating class with the selected peer programs. The data were obtained from the ASEE Profiles of Engineering for 2007. Unfortunately, minority composition was not found for specific specialties.
Table V. Gender and Minority Composition of CEE Baccalaureate Graduates, 2006-07

While Michigan Tech’s fractions of women and Native American graduates are respectable, our fractions of other minority graduates are low. Considering our in-state competitors, we compare well to Michigan State, with a few exceptions, and need to make fairly significant improvements to compare well with the University of Michigan.

Diversity Goals:
The CEE Department faculty at Michigan Tech should be reasonably representative of the citizens of Michigan (78% White, 14.4% African American, 2.2% Asian, 3.5% Hispanic, 0.6% Native American, 1.4% other, and 51% female; from www.census.gov for July 2003).  The same is true for the undergraduate student body and the graduate student body.  In a “flat world” the student body should also consist of a reasonable percentage of international students, at least 15%.   In the long run, the Department should make an effort to become representative of the population of the United States, although that is more difficult due to our location in the northern tier of the Midwest. 

Strategies
The engineering and science professions recognize that reaching out to the full spectrum of individuals is essential to the future of those professions.  The efforts throughout the United States to attract women and underrepresented minorities to STEM disciplines are evidence of this recognition.  The CEE Department at Michigan Tech has a responsibility to reach out to all individuals and should make a special effort to attract individuals who have traditionally not entered civil and environmental engineering.  Some possible ways to help reach our goals follow.

1. Support women and under represented minority student groups. For instance, the Native American Association is making an effort to increase the number of Native American engineering students. Support for this effort, for example, could consist of travel support to national meetings of the American Indian Science and Engineering Association to recruit Native American graduate students.
2. Promote the development of an efficient hiring path to facilitate the recruitment of faculty, especially women and under represented minorities, where we often face strong competition.
3. Emphasize our international and humanitarian engineering activities such as international senior design and the Masters International Program. Experience has shown that these programs tend to attract a high fraction of women and minorities.
4. Promote the development of a dual career support program for hiring and retaining faculty. Experience has shown that dual career programs are effective in hiring and retaining faculty, especially women and under represented minorities.
5. Cooperate with the University and College of Engineering on university-wide and college-wide efforts.
6. Support educational outreach programs, such as K-12 outreach, that are likely to enhance the diversity of our student body.