This Work in Progress Research paper aims to shed light on the reasons that inspire minoritized students to pursue a Ph.D. degree in engineering. Thus, this study investigates the motivations that URM students give as their deciding factors for pursuing doctoral degrees. We examine the research question: How do URM students describe their decision to pursue a doctorate in an engineering discipline? To explore our question, we conducted a modified grounded theory analysis of survey data collected from 51 URM students during a summer workshop held prior to the commencement of their respective programs. Their answers to open-ended questions and other contextual details formed the basis of our data sample. Our diverse sample includes representations of students from various engineering disciplines as well as various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Our study employs the principles of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) to analyze the environmental variables, personal outcome expectations, and other factors that influence students' decisions to pursue a doctoral degree in their respective fields. Next steps of this work will employ SCCT, as we can gain a deeper understanding of students' motivations and identify the factors that play a significant role in their decision-making processes. Continuing work in this area can be valuable to engineering graduate programs by providing insights into how URM students can be supported throughout their degrees.

In this Research Full Paper we explore the factors that traditionally minoritized students consider when selecting a graduate school to pursue a doctoral degree in an engineering discipline. To this end, we used case study methods to analyze the experiences of ten traditionally minoritized students through interviews conducted immediately after they had selected their graduate programs, but before they had commenced their studies. Our findings show that in choosing an institution, the most salient ideals these students hold are related to the offer of funding towards their degree and an alignment with their initial research interests. However, they described having made compromises on ideals related to their personal experience and racial identity, the most prominent being finding a faculty mentor with a similar racial background, finding a racially diverse institution, or being located in a geographical location they perceived to be more amenable to their individual identities. These findings suggest that continuing to increase the recruitment of traditionally minoritized faculty in engineering schools would have a direct impact on minoritized student recruitment, by thus helping to create spaces where more of their racial identity ideals are met and fewer compromises are made. Equally important to the recruitment of traditionally minoritized students is the transparency of funding opportunities during the recruitment and application processes, and the publication of current research opportunities within the institution.

The purpose of this work-in-progress paper is to identify barriers and drivers occurring in academic institutions aiming to diversify their engineering faculty. We recognize that institutions of higher education are complex systems driven by a multitude of internal and external forces that play a role when trying to enact institutional change. Examples of these factors are limited resources, conflicting needs of multiple stakeholders, and different academic cultures. To better understand how these factors affect change, we consider engineering education as a complex system. In this early-stage project, we are using literature, existing theories, and ASEE data to identify causal loops that illustrate a particular space of institutional change related to faculty diversification in terms of gender, through the evaluation of the effect of ADVANCE initiatives. The goal is to explore the feasibility of using the complexity theory method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to identify leverage points and persistent barriers to change. We will summarize the potential of QCA as a methodology to explore the challenge of faculty diversification in STEM, and other intricate problems in higher education.

Several studies have shown that underrepresented minorities (URM) (African Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Latinos) are more likely to drop out of engineering doctorate programs before graduation compared to international and majority students. In addition, transitioning into the doctoral programs without having a good understanding of what it entails can make the PhD experience difficult. To address this issue, a team of researchers from four US universities developed a project called “the Rising Doctoral Institute (RDI)”. One of the research goals of this project is to better understand how factors in the academic system interact dynamically to influence (i.e., support or hinder) incoming URM students' access, success, persistence, and retention in engineering doctoral programs. To accomplish this goal, we will use a comprehensive analysis approach known as System Dynamic Model (SDM). This work-In-Progress article represents the starting point to develop this model and its overall goal is to conduct a systematic literature review to identify the factors in the academic system that impact URM students' experience in doctoral engineering programs. We followed a process suggested by Okoli and Schabram [1] which consists of four major steps. The first step is presenting the purpose of the literature review, protocol, and training. The second step consists of selecting the literature and practical screen. The next step is the quality appraisal and data extraction. Finally, the analysis of findings and writing the review. By identifying the factors and the relation between them, we could help ensure a more diverse and equitable STEM education. Although some external factors can affect students' access, success, persistence and retention in engineering PhD programs, this study is limited to exploring the factors and interactions within the academic system that can potentially impact the successful experience of underrepresented minorities in PhD programs in engineering such as Advisor-Advisee Relationship, Student's Experience, Academic Support and Faculty-Students Interaction.

This research to practice full paper describes an answer to a problem described in a study completed by the Council of Graduate Schools, where data showed that doctoral students in the United States are departing from their pursuit of the Ph.D. at high rates. Additionally, the study showed that the departure rates for underrepresented minorities (URM) (i.e., African-American, Native American, Pacific Islander American, and Hispanic American) are higher, as they complete their Ph.D. at lesser rates than their majority peers. Previous research has suggested that lack of motivation during the dissertation phase is one of the leading factors for students' decision to depart. This phase of the doctoral pursuit is often characterized as lonely and filled with uncertainty about the process towards degree completion.To address this problem, we have created the Dissertation Institute. This NSF-funded research project consists of a one-week workshop for underrepresented minorities in the final phases of their Ph.D. in engineering. The goal of the workshop is to offer a practical and timely experience for doctoral students to help them progress through degree completion. The design of this workshop is grounded in research to address issues typical of the final phases of the Ph.D., help shorten students' time-to-degree and increase doctoral completion rates for URM. While similar programs already exist, the Institute differs by simultaneously collecting research data that will further the understanding of the success and value beliefs of its participants and help develop future workshops.The purpose of this publication is to present a description of the Dissertation Institute as well as the evaluation results for its first implementation which took place in the summer of 2017. The evaluation plan consists of participant pre and post surveys, observations, and individual session assessments. Preliminary results show that the Dissertation Institute increased students' success beliefs and utility and cost-benefit value in academic writing. Results also showed that students appreciated having a safe space to communicate their academic concerns with session facilitators and fellow doctoral students. Students also expressed the individualized attention from the workshop facilitators aided in the transfer of the advice received throughout the multiple sessions to their specific pursuits. Findings from this evaluation will inform future development and implementations of the Institute and help inform the design of similar workshops.

In this Work In Progress paper, we describe an NSF-funded research project designed to enhance the presence, socialization, retention and advancement of junior and mid-career university faculty from underrepresented minorities (URM) (i.e., African American, Native American, Pacific Islander and Hispanic Faculty) in engineering disciplines. The understanding behind this project is that to increase and sustain diversity in engineering, there is first and foremost, a fundamental need to increase diversity in faculty and enhance their career development; therefore, this project is developing and implementing a holistic array of career development initiatives for URM faculty. Although important conversations about race, inclusion and diversity are at the forefront of academic institutions around the country, preliminary results suggest that many of the circumstances that are potential barriers to URM faculty development still persist. Through this project, we are working to continue moving these conversations toward purposeful and deliberate actions and to research and analyze these perceived barriers to inform academic institutions, as well as interested constituents, of realities URM faculty face. This work-in-progress project is in the first year of the five years projected and it will continue to elaborate on a mixed method approach to answering the research questions while offering a yearly workshop that also integrates more than a decade of first-hand experience with the NSF Minority Development Workshop (MFDW).