Associate Professor, School of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE)
Do you feel the College is an inclusive place for faculty and staff? Why or why not?
What I’ve seen so far is that the College is an inclusive place. There’s definitely a lot of effort being put into faculty searches in order to include a diverse pool of candidates, especially women and people from underrepresented minorities. The LGBTQIA Center was created about five years ago and has been very proactive about reaching out to faculty, staff and students in order to educate and celebrate. Some trainings have been newly offered such as the QPR training to raise awareness about mental health and to better equip the faculty and students to give them tools to aid those in distress. I think these initiatives promote diversity and inclusion.
How are you involved in inclusivity efforts around campus with students and/or faculty?
My biggest involvement is through the LGBTQIA Center; I am currently serving as the liaison between that center and CEE. Whenever there are questions concerning LGBTQIA issues, I am here to be a spokesperson. I am also working to organize focus groups with the center to engage more faculty and increase the visibility of these communities within the College of Engineering. I have been a part of multiple panels where STEM students had questions regarding the working environment and how to prepare for interviews. I mentor two graduate students who identify as LGBTQIA, and we talk about research and LGBTQIA issues. I am also part of the College of Engineering committee for diversity and inclusion, and I am trying to create a specific committee of diversity and inclusion within the school [of CEE] together with Robert Simon, one of my colleagues, to develop more pragmatic ideas to implement the more general ideas at the College level.
Where do you think there are opportunities to be more inclusive across our eight schools?
One thing that I see missing is the link between the testing center for students with learning disabilities and our instructors. There is a disconnect between the incoming students in a class and how classrooms are attributed and how students with disabilities are dispatched between classes. One year, one of my students was in a wheelchair, and he could only attend the class from the very back because there were stairs throughout the classroom. This year, out of the 116 students I am teaching, six of them have learning disabilities, which are all very different. It is a lot to handle for one instructor, especially because the Office of Disability Services did not know the needs of the students. This leads to a lot of fatigue and miscommunication for both the faculty and students. I think there is more training and extra support needed. Right now, it’s just not available.
Why do you feel diversity and inclusion are important in higher education and beyond?
There is a lot of literature around how diversity is beneficial to innovation. Working with a diverse set of scholars can lead to more innovative ideas. It is not necessarily always the easiest path because sometimes you face communication barriers, but the simple exercise of overcoming those issues is often very beneficial. Valuing that and trying to better understand how different people from different backgrounds think and operate in a research environment can bring new ideas and lead to growth for both professors and students.