Diversity improves at School of Engineering

The administration and faculty of the School of Engineering have been making a strong effort to increase the diversity of the school's student body for the past six years, with noticeable results. But the University hopes to build further on this progress and garner more interest in engineering from students of different backgrounds.

"We are doing very well overall, but we're not quite there yet with certain groups," Dean of Engineering Ioannis Miaoulis said. "I will be happy when the population of the engineering school reflects the population of the world."

A Strategic Plan development was organized in 1996 with the goal of enhancing the diversity of the students and faculty in the School of Engineering. Since then, the number of female faculty members has tripled and women have taken on key leadership positions. Several department heads are women, as is the Associate Dean of Engineering.

Presently, half of the department chairs and directors in the schools are members of typically underrepresented groups. By improving the diversity of the faculty, the school hopes that more students will feel welcome in the school. These professors serve as role models for women and other minority students in engineering.

Professors, in turn, would like to see more diversity in their classrooms. "There's never enough of it," Professor James Schmolze said. He cited the moderate number of women in his classes as well as the small numbers of African-American and Hispanic students.

That said, Tufts has twice as many female engineering students as the national average _ 32 percent of undergraduates and 40 percent of graduate students of the School of Engineering are women. In total, underrepresented groups constitute between 40 to 50 percent of the student body, of which approximately 20 percent are students of color and 15 percent are international students. The Office of Institutional Research does not compile an exact breakdown of the racial composition of the School of Engineering's student body.

To attract more students to engineering, professors have altered their curriculum to include a more hands-on approach. Schmolze referred to studies that show that female students are less drawn to the technical aspects of engineering than male students are. If the material has a clear application, however, it generally has a greater appeal to women. Tufts has integrated this active approach in engineering, and is reaching a broader range of students.

Furthermore, professors strongly encourage women and minority students without giving these students special treatment. According to Professor Robert Gonsalves, the departments track the academic performance of all their students through personal contact which is effective at encouraging engineering students from all backgrounds.

Professors have noticed improvements in the diversity of their classes. When Professor Karen Panetta first started teaching at Tufts, only one of her students was female. Now, women make up half of Panetta's classes. Professor Judy Stafford, in her first year at Tufts, noticed a higher female representation in her Software Engineering class than she had expected. Women comprise one quarter of her students, which is 15 percent higher than she had anticipated.

The culture of the school has changed as more women are becoming engineers. "Now that the climate has become more accepting to women, it becomes more accepting to other underrepresented groups," said Miaoulis, the dean, referring to African-American and Hispanic students in particular.

To improve the diversity of the engineering field, the University has been working with schools throughout the state to integrate engineering into the curriculum at all grade levels, from kindergarten through high school. "Children are taught math and science in schools, but engineering is more than math and science," Panetta said. Also, for the last four years the University has hosted a LEGO camp, where local children between the ages of 5-10 design, build, and program engineering projects made from LEGOs. The goal of these programs are to introduce students to engineering at a young age and to encourage children of all backgrounds to explore this field.

This effort has helped the Tufts School of Engineering receive greater name recognition among prospective students, and applications to the school have doubled in the past eight years.

"A university provides the perfect laboratory setting to understand the interactions between diverse groups," Gonsalves remarked. "It's a place to make mistakes, learn, and avoid trouble in the future."