About TECAID

The TECAID Story

In 2013, the WEPAN Board of Directors articulated the vision of an inclusive engineering culture that would support the success of women and other groups that are underrepresented in engineering colleges. In 2014, WEPAN began a new collaboration with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); Purdue University; the Kardia Group; and the Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (CERSE) at the University of Washington. Together, we proposed the Transforming Engineering Culture to Advance Inclusion and Diversity (TECAID) project for National Science Foundation funding.

TECAID was funded and launched in October 2014. During the following 2 years (2015-2016), five teams of faculty, chairs, and staff from Mechanical Engineering departments across the U.S. worked intensively with each other, with the project leadership team, and with a team of subject matter experts to gain the knowledge, skills, strategies, and awareness most relevant to changing the complex academic environment. Feedback from TECAID participants revealed significant learning about inclusion and diversity as well as departmental leadership.

Original TECAID PI Interview (40:00) To learn about TECAID from our original PI’s, please listen to this engaging interview by Liz Litzler (TECAID Evaluator), with Diane Matt (original TECAID PI from WEPAN), Tom Perry (original ASME Co-PI), and Klod Kokini (original Purdue University College of Engineering Co-PI)

TECAID Small Group PI Interview Transcript PDF >

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TECAID Purpose

Develop faculty capacity to build, facilitate and sustain inclusive and diverse department cultures that benefit all participants in:

• classrooms, labs, and student design groups
• faculty meetings and hallway conversations
• underlying department dynamics

TECAID Strategy

Intensive expert professional development focused on:

• developing inclusion and diversity awareness, knowledge, team-building and skills
• understanding and leading academic department change
• building personal and team leadership capacity
• working effectively with subject matter experts and allies
• fostering the emergence and growth of team expertise
• creating a supportive, ongoing learning community

TECAID Mechanical Engineering Department Teams

• Michigan Technological University
• Oregon State University
• Purdue University (Use Purdue University-Mechanical Engineering link)
• Texas Tech University
• University of Oklahoma

TECAID Team Projects

Each department team:

• created an inclusion and diversity-oriented project relevant to their own institutional context
• developed and refined their projects using various TECAID strategies and concepts
• identified strategies for achieving their goals in consultation with TECAID subject matter experts and colleagues
• shared project plans, built alliances with university colleagues and external organizations, and implemented their projects

TECAID Project Leadership Team

Representatives from:

• Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN )
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME )
• Purdue University
• University of Washington Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (CERSE), project evaluator

Working in close collaboration with:

• Kardia Group, subject matter experts

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TECAID Purpose

For engineers to meet the complex, global challenges of the 21st century, the engineering community must increase its capacity to recognize and incorporate diverse perspectives. One way to increase this diversity of perspectives is through a culture of inclusion in which members of all groups feel welcomed and that their talents as engineers are valued. A starting place for developing such a culture is in higher education.

Engineering cultures are frequently unwelcoming and ill-attuned to members of underrepresented groups (such as women, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and those from the LGBTQ community). Unfortunately, such cultures can be a significant driver of student, staff and faculty attrition in engineering colleges. Faculty members, through individual and collective actions, have a significant impact on learning environments, working environments, and cultures on university campuses.

Therefore, TECAID is informed by three core principles:

• Much is known about engineering cultures
• Engineering culture change to advance inclusion, equity, and diversity is needed to support innovation, creativity, and address global challenges
• Engineering faculty are a critical group to engage as advocates for culture change in higher education

With these core principles in mind, TECAID’s professional development strategy aimed for three goals:

• Increase the knowledge, awareness, confidence and readiness of engineering faculty and their allies to be effective internal change agents to advance inclusion, equity and diversity.
• Provide engineering faculty and staff with tools and resources to be strategic as they learn about, plan for, and make change.
• Identify local solutions that consider the current context, culture, resources, core mission, and activities of each academic community.

“To successfully address many global challenges, we must better engage the engineering and scientific talent of diverse populations. Today, many thousands of gifted individuals, most notably women and underrepresented minorities, remain a disproportionately small fraction of those in engineering careers, while at the same time the opportunities and rewards of an engineering career have never been better.

Innovation arises out of a diverse mix of thought, experience and inclusive culture–a culture that is frequently advocated, but difficult to achieve and sustain in practice. The U.S and most other countries are becoming increasingly demographically diverse: there is both opportunity and imperative for colleges and universities to be leaders in incorporating and cultivating the best that a dynamic society has to offer.”

- Thomas Perry, P.E., Director of Engineering Education at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

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