The college of engineering at North Carolina State University (NC State) is approaching diversity from several different directions. Support for women and underrepresented minority students is extensive, and there's a commitment to hire more women and minority faculty.
NC State is a land-grant university, established in 1887 as a school to teach agriculture and engineering in support of the local economy. The land-grant system of schools covers the entire U.S. and includes many schools whose original charter was to teach the practical disciplines that their states needed. Today NC State offers a full academic curriculum.
NC State is part of the Research Triangle complex of North Carolina, and the largest university in the state, with 30,000 students. Its Centennial Campus, a 1,000-acre research and technology-transfer "technopolis," includes corporate and government research and development centers and business incubators. NC State also owns research stations, outreach centers and extension facilities across the state.
The school of engineering has almost 7,500 students, 930 faculty and staff and a dozen academic departments. It offers BS degrees in eighteen different areas, MS degrees in seventeen and PhDs in thirteen. In the 2005/ 06 academic year it ranked fourth in the U.S. in the number of BS degrees awarded to women and fifth in the number awarded to African Americans. It graduated the fifth-largest number of Native American engineers.
Dr George List, the professor who heads the civil, construction and environmental engineering department at the school, joined NC State in the summer of 2005. "I made a commitment that we were going to work very hard on diversity within the department," he says. There are currently only a few women and minorities among the department's tenured faculty.
The engineering college supports the NC State Industrial Engineering Service (IES). When it was set up in 1955 the IES was the first such service in the U.S. Its job is to help North Carolina manufacturers and other industrial organizations to create and maintain jobs by offering technical assistance in a variety of areas.
A recent effort brought a workshop on sophisticated safety procedures to North Carolina construction workers. Because there is a large population of Spanish-speakers working in that industry, the workshop was delivered in Spanish. The presence of an Hispanic department member made that a great deal more effective, List notes.
In addition to tenure-track faculty, the department employs two professionals who spend about 70 percent of their time running workshops, visiting firms, and providing expert assistance to North Carolina companies via IES and other extension programs. The other 30 percent of their time is spent teaching students. For those jobs, industry experience is very important, List notes.
For its students, NC State offers a range of support options. The Women in Engineering program began in 1998. In the fall of 2003 the first students moved into the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Village, three floors of a dorm where all the residents are first- and second-year female engineering, math and science students. The WISE Village residents attend several basic classes together, and get in-residence tutoring and lots of support from faculty and other students. They're also offered professional enrichment activities, like a speakers series that brings professional technical women to campus. Residents are expected to participate in volunteer opportunities, such as the NC State K-12 pre-engineering outreach program that aims to boost interest in engineering among girls and minority youth.
The WISE Village program started with fifty-six residents and now has about 260, reports Katherine C. Titus-Becker, WISE director. "Early research indicates the WISE program retains women in these majors at a higher rate than women who were not enrolled in the WISE program," she adds.
NC State has had a Minorities in Engineering Program (MEP) since 1982. The program was revitalized in 1995, says Tony Mitchell, assistant dean and director of minority engineering programs. Mitchell is also an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.
The program serves more than 600 African American, Hispanic and Native American students. All students receive e-mails several times during the academic year reminding them of events like corporate recruiting sessions, engineering career fairs, internship and scholarship opportunities, volunteer opportunities, meetings of student chapters of NSBE, AISES, and SHPE, and more. The office also sponsors a number of other programs designed to increase the likelihood that students will complete their degrees. Graduation rates have been rising steadily since 1998, reports Mitchell.
He's proud of the level of corporate support the program enjoys. He has formed a national MEP advisory board whose active members include more than two dozen major high-technology companies, including Duke Energy, EMC Corp, IBM, HP, Intel and Northrop Grumman. "Board members come to campus twice annually for board meetings, and return to recruit at career fairs or hold special information sessions with our MEP students," Mitchell says. Corporate representatives routinely contact the MEP office directly to recruit the program's students.
The board came to the rescue in the fall of 2005, when the department faced the challenge of how to continue a successful summer bridge program that cost $80,000 a year. Each board member at the meeting agreed to provide funding for at least one student participant. "Once these commitments are honored by the entire board, this annual funding concern will be history," Mitchell reports with satisfaction.
As students approach graduation Mitchell makes sure that they are aware of the wide range of minority-focused grad school opportunities available. "I tell them about programs like GEM, the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation," Mitchell says.
D/C
School of Engineering
www.ncsu.edu
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Headquarters: |
Raleigh, NC |
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Students: |
7,500 |
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Faculty and staff: |
930 |
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Degrees offered: |
BS, MS and PhD in a wide variety of engineering disciplines and specialties |
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