Name Change – COE’s K-12/Diversity Office Now EEO
Working to produce a diverse population of engineers, the College of Engineering (COE) at Georgia Tech has incorporated its outreach efforts into the Engineering Education Outreach office (EEO). Previously known as the COE K-12 & Diversity office, the newly named EEO will focus on cultivating a diverse pipeline by increasing engineering awareness in the K-12 arena. In addition, the EEO office will work to attract, empower, and retain undergraduate and graduate diverse talent in engineering. According to Dr. Felicia Benton-Johnson, director of EEO, “our mission is to build bridges with the pre-collegiate community to encourage interest in engineering and then provide an environment that ensures they will succeed at the collegiate level.” The EEO office will have two thrust areas: Engineering Pre-Collegiate Development and Academic Diversity.
Thrust 1: Engineering Pre-Collegiate Development
In Pre-Collegiate Development the emphasis will be on real world hands-on engineering experiences for K-12 students and teachers. Among those activities are the GT Engineering Design Challenge, Young Engineers’ Day, and the Summer Engineering Institute (SEI). Each of these activities expose students to engineering disciplines, as well as the impact engineering makes on society as a whole.
Thrust 2: Academic Diversity
In Academic Diversity, EEO is focusing on programs and initiatives to attract and retain students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. “It is important to guarantee that Georgia Tech remains a national leader in producing a diverse population of engineers,” said Benton-Johnson. “When we talk diversity, it is not just ethnic diversity. For us, diversity is that which makes us unique.”
Current EEO Academic Diversity efforts include the Dual Degree Engineering Program and the Regional Engineering Transfer Program. In addition, the EEO office is working with national efforts such as the National GEM Consortium and HP-MESA Diversity in Engineering program which focus on historically under-represented groups in the fields of engineering.
A recent study by the National Academy of Engineering reported that girls and underrepresented minorities have not historically been attracted to technical careers in large numbers. The goal of the Engineering Education Outreach office is to help improve the public understanding of engineering in order to increase the number and diversity of students interested in obtaining an engineering degree by “truly engineering a diverse pipeline while touching lives through engineering.”
Key links: www.coe.gatech.edu/diversity/vision.php
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