This work-in-progress (WIP) research paper seeks to explore the diverse backgrounds and experiences of engineering instructional faculty (EIF) and what motivates them to pursue their current positions at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Full-time, professional-track faculty focusing on either teaching or research, who are often not eligible for tenure, are a growing population in higher education and remain an under-explored and under-supported group in engineering. Of those in teaching-focused positions, these professional-track faculty typically teach critical courses within a student's curriculum, such as first-year, introduction to engineering, design, or other foundational courses. Therefore, to understand the impact their various backgrounds, and personal and professional experiences have on their current positions, this WIP describes an exploratory study aimed at communicating the motivations of these EIFs for transitioning into professional-track faculty positions at HSIs. Preliminary data analysis suggests that even with a diverse educational and work background, EIFs share motivational factors, such as a desire for work-life balance, enthusiasm for teaching, enthusiasm for learning, and enthusiasm for their engineering discipline that played an important role in their decision to pursue an EIF position at an HSIs.

Identity research has revealed that the identities that we take on can impact on our motivations and behavior. For example, the extent to which a person identifies themselves as an engineer influences how they fulfill that role. Identity research also points out that people have multiple identities, and our response to a situation is dynamically constructed based on the identities at play. However, the importance a person ascribes to one identity relative to another can potentially create interference between identities, especially since different cultural norms can inform those identities. This is particularly important for students from underrepresented populations in engineering, where the dominant identities are male, white, and heteronormative. Therefore this work-in-progress paper describes a framework for use and validation in future studies exploring our students' identities and how they can be better supported in navigating identity interference resulting from values conflicts.

This work-in-progress research paper shares preliminary results from exploring faculty perceptions and beliefs about students' backgrounds in engineering at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Faculty enhance or hinder learning through their interactions with students. Fostering an asset or supportive-based mindset in the classroom is crucial to supporting students' learning. As part of a larger multiple case study, preliminary results from a qualitative analysis of faculty interviews indicate that most faculty fostered a supportive-based mindset (e.g., intentional approaches to help students or alleviate challenges), an emergent theme regarding students' backgrounds, while others gravitated towards asset-based perspectives. Despite these findings, a few faculty members also expressed deficit-based mindsets. Therefore, this study seeks to enable the design of faculty development opportunities at HSIs informed by understanding faculty perspectives of their students' backgrounds.

Engineering educators have a growing interest in supporting the development of a suite of professional and technical skills in engineering graduates, called for by both professional organizations and industry. This suite of professional skills can be viewed as comprising an (implicit) model of engineering leadership. But a number of definitions and models for engineering leadership have emerged, and no consensus has been reached on a definition of engineering leadership that can be effectively translated into educational experiences that are pedagogically and developmentally appropriate for undergraduate students. In this special session, we bring engineering educators together to work towards a shared understanding of engineering leadership, and to develop strategies for learning experiences in this space.

This innovative practice full paper describes an effort to create a thread of engineering leadership development throughout an undergraduate engineering degree at The University of Texas at El Paso. The first bachelor's degree of its kind in the nation, this new degree is housed in the Department of Engineering Education and Leadership and has a heavy emphasis on integrating fundamental engineering theory and skills with business acumen and leadership development (e-lead.utep.edu). In developing the leadership component of the degree, the faculty understood that one of the most effective methods by which people learn to develop as leaders is through practice. Therefore, rather than place all leadership development in a single course in the Engineering Leadership Program (E-Lead), the degree was designed to have a coordinated thread of leadership development throughout the degree plan, encompassing both curricular and extracurricular opportunities. Focused heavily on practice and application, a framework for leadership development was designed to take a tiered approach. For all students, in-class activities introduce fundamental concepts of engineering leadership in the context of teamwork and engineering project management in the E-Lead courses. For those students interested in more in-depth experience and training, additional extracurricular leadership development opportunities were made available in the form of coaching or attending leadership conferences and workshops. In all of these activities, the focus is on helping students to develop their character, capacity, and competence. Having recently graduated the first cohort of students using this leadership development approach, this paper describes the framework used for leadership development and the key activities dispersed throughout the engineering leadership thread. Further, this paper includes qualitative results from assessing the impact of these activities on our graduating cohort.