Bylaws – CEE DEI Committee

updated 12/31/2022

Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Purpose
The purpose of the Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is to identify, raise awareness, and work on issues related to DEI in the School. The Committee will counsel the School Chair on DEI matters, as appropriate, and develop and propose plans and initiatives intended to harness the School’s intellectual diversity, and promote a culture of equity and inclusion. The committee will complement the role and activities of the College of Engineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council.

Activities
The Committee will meet two to three times per semester. The Committee will prepare an Action Plan for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that identifies relevant DEI issues, sets goals and objectives, proposes initiatives and projects designed to meet goals and objectives, and monitors progress towards their resolution/achievement over the academic year. The Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will undertake the following activities:

  • Develop and maintain the Civil and Environmental (CEE) Action Plan for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which will be approved by CEE faculty and staff initially, and as it is amended;
  • Collaborate with the faculty search committee on constructing job advertisements to highlight the unique leadership of GT in diversity and inclusion initiatives;
  • Actively engage in the faculty candidate interview process by appointing at least one of its faculty members to meet with each faculty candidate who interviews, for the purpose of (i) communicating the School’s vision, plans and activities in relation to diversity and inclusion, and (ii) learning about the candidate’s understanding, experience and plans related to DEI issues. The Committee will provide feedback to the School Chair and search committee on each faculty candidate meeting;
  • Advise the CEE School Chair on the formation of ad hoc committees, task forces, and advisory boards to include a diverse body of CEE faculty and staff members;
  • Work in support of the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and Research Innovation in recruiting graduate students from underrepresented groups. The definition of the term “underrepresented group” will be regularly updated by the DEI Committee based on federal regulations, reports made publicly available by peer committees, and changes in the School’s enrollment. This includes recruitment and organizational activities related to the GT FOCUS Scholars or related programs;
  • Propose new mentoring models tailored towards the inclusion of diverse communities in CEE, for example, link with campus associations to provide online resources and handbooks to incoming faculty, staff and students for life balance, spiritual and mindfulness practice, social and civic engagement, sports and arts;
  • Inform the CEE community of policy changes (e.g., policies regarding sexual harassment, pronouns, accommodations for physical handicaps or grade waivers for transfer students), available trainings (e.g., the Safe Space training and the QPR training), calls for proposals (e.g., through the NSF Broadening Participation in Engineering program), and opportunities for enhanced support for members of the CEE community (e.g., programs oriented toward families, special needs, social engagement);
  • Consult the faculty to propose an increase of the participation of staff members in the School’s governance, for example, by involving staff members in some standing committees;
  • Gather teaching resources to enhance thought diversity and cultural inclusion in engineering education, for example template syllabi with diversity statements, themed example problems (e.g., design of a wheel chair);
  • Create innovative diversity, equity and inclusion assessment methods, aimed to celebrate culture, emphasize intellectual diversity, and measure the effectiveness of our strategies. These assessment methods will be presented to the faculty, along with recommendations on how best to employ them. In a second stage, the DEI Committee will recommend to the faculty an assessment implementation plan;
  • Liaise with similar committees in other Schools to identify, adopt and disseminate effective practices;
  • Stay abreast of emerging trends and/or policy changes at the local, state, national, and global levels.

Membership

The DEI Committee will consist of two undergraduate students, two graduate students, one postdoctoral researcher, five faculty members (including one research faculty member), and three staff members, all affiliated with CEE. Undergraduate and graduate students will elect DEI Committee members among CEE undergraduate and graduate students, respectively. Interested postdoctoral researchers, staff and faculty members will declare candidacy to join the DEI Committee and will be elected by CEE postdoctoral researchers, staff members and faculty members, respectively. Faculty and staff DEI Committee members will serve for three years. Student and postdoctoral researcher DEI Committee members will serve for 18 months. Every 18 months, the entirety of the student members and half of the faculty and staff members will be renewed. Half of the original faculty and staff members (three faculty, one staff) will serve half-terms once the committee forms, to ensure a staggered transition. This will occur once. At the beginning of the academic year, the current DEI Committee members will elect a chair and a vice chair, who will be responsible to run the elections of the new coming DEI Committee members. It will be possible to serve for up to two terms in a row, for a total of six years for faculty and staff members and three years for student members. After that, members will have to step down for at least two years. In the event that any Committee member is unable to fulfill their term of 18 months for any reason, and a vacancy arises between elections, the Committee shall determine how the vacant position is filled.

If, at one of the elections, a position cannot be filled (because not enough candidates are running or not enough candidates are elected), then the DEI Committee members will elect an interim substitute for the unfilled position. Eligible candidates (i.e., not have served on the Committee as an interim member in the past 18 months) who ran at the elections and were not elected will be offered to run for that unfilled position, in quality of interim member. The elected interim member will serve for the term of the unfilled position, which may not be the same as the term of the position that the candidate was running for initially.

Example: Spring 2022 elections. Seats open: 2 academic faculty members, 1 postdoc, 1 graduate student, 2 undergraduate students and 1 staff member. Candidates: 2 faculty members, 3 postdocs, 2 graduate students, 1 undergraduate student, 4 staff members. Unfilled position(s): 1 undergraduate student. Candidates not elected in first round and eligible for interim membership: 2 postdocs (ran for an 18-months position in first round), 1 graduate student (ran for an 18-months position in first round), and 3 staff members (ran for a 3-years position in first round). Term of the interim membership: 18 months (term for an unfilled undergraduate student member position).

Additionally, any CEE faculty or staff members serving on the College of Engineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council will serve as ex-officio members, if they weren’t elected to serve in the CEE DEI committee.

Reporting
The DEI Committee will report its work, findings, and recommendations to the School Chair once in each of the Spring and Fall semesters. It will report at a joint faculty/staff meeting either at the end of each Spring or Fall semester, or at the start of the next semester, as well as meetings with the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Advisory Councils. The reports will highlight activities towards four main goals:

  • Inform – inform on policies, training and calls for proposals through monthly electronic newsletters and occasional invited speakers;
  • Engage – increase participation of a diverse body of faculty and staff members in CEE governance;
  • Support – build and disseminate education resources (e.g., syllabi examples, diversity-oriented engineering problems to solve in class), write easy-to-use documentation packets, organize events to celebrate diversity, organize strong mentoring programs;
  • Assess – create innovative metrics of diversity and inclusion in CEE.