Researchers over the past three decades have documented processes of gender and racial/ethnic inequality in engineering education but little is known about other axes of difference, including the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) persons in engineering. To address this need, the American Society for Engineering Ed­ucation (ASEE) launched this project linking diversity research with a faculty development initiative to promote LGBTQ equality in engineering and other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines. The overall project included five components:

• Surveys to engineering (a) deans, (b) faculty, and (c) students
• A Virtual Community of Practice (VCP) focused on LGBTQ advocacy in STEM
• A series of LGBTQ Safe Zone ally training workshops
• Participant observation, and participatory action research within the VCP, and
• In-depth interviews with engineering deans

We conducted the first-ever diversity and inclusion survey of deans of engineering and engineering technology colleges and programs. Using a survey sample of over 40 deans, we examined the extent to which deans recognized issues of LGBTQ exclusion, marginalization, and heteronormativity (i.e., the belief that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality) within their engineering college. More than a third of deans reported that there was at least one aspect of LGBTQ marginalization within their college or program. We also examined deans’ views on a variety of LGBTQ-inclusion initiatives such as adding LGBTQ status to nondiscrimination statements in hiring ads,  requiring a diversity statement on course syllabi,  Safe Zone trainings for interested faculty and students, and hiring initiatives for openly LGBTQ engineering faculty. We found that most deans expressed support for the majority of these initiatives. However, our analysis points to an important potential roadblock to the promotion of LGBTQ equality in engineering: engineering deans may resist LGBTQ inclusion initiatives not because they are personally opposed to them but because they believe their faculty would be unsupportive of such initiatives.

Survey data on over 1,700 students (both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ) from eight engineering colleges across the U.S. helped us portrait the current landscape of inequalities for LGBTQ students. We found that LGBTQ students are significantly more likely than non-LGBTQ students to report marginalization in their engineering programs. Not only do they feel less accepted and more ignored, but they feel less comfortable joining existing social events among their classmates. LGBTQ students are less likely than their peers to feel that their work as engineering students is respected. So, not only is LGBTQ inequality an issue of social isolation, but of professional devaluation as well. Our findings also suggest that these difficulties take their toll on LGBTQ students personally: compared to their peers, LGBTQ students are significantly more likely to report emotional, sleeping, and stress difficulties and are more likely to feel exhausted by efforts to compartmentalize their lives. Furthermore, there is little variation in the climate for LGBTQ students across the eight schools, suggesting that anti‐LGBTQ bias may be widespread in engineering education.

 A critical aspect of this project was the establishment of a virtual community of practice (VCP) to develop engineering faculty who are aware, empowered and equipped to advance LGBTQ equality in their departments. Besides faculty, the community also attracted graduate students, and academic staff and administrators not from engineering, and from other STEM disciplines.  The regular, online community meetings offered a mechanism for its over 30 members to share knowledge, ideas and resources, and support one another as they developed and implemented action plans to promote LGBTQ equality in their professional environments, including preparation to facilitate Safe Zone ally training workshops around the country. Community impact permeated across multiple levels, including individual, institutional and organizational levels. Members have frequently expressed how much the group has meant to their personal and professional development, indicating growth in communication and advocacy skills, deriving strength from community, and the ability to effect change in their departments and colleges. Over a 1,000 participants have joined our Safe Zone ally training workshops offered at STEM departments and professional society meetings, or online. ASEE Safe Zone training workshops have offered participants an opportunity to gain cultural competence in LGBTQ terminology, common challenges faced by LGBTQ students and faculty in STEM, and strategies for intervening in these challenges.

 Lastly, drawing on participant observation of VCP meetings, our ongoing participatory action research has documented eight cases of community members involved in advocacy at their home institutions, illustrating a range of climates from the most accepting to the most hostile, for establishing and implementing ASEE Safe Zone programs. Our unpublished results point to 1) factors that make a college more amenable to accepting an ASEE Safe Zone program; 2) challenges in establishing and implementing programs in contexts that are welcoming to diversity, if partially; and 3) challenges when there is overt opposition to diversity programming. 

Last Modified: 04/15/2019
Modified by: Stephanie Farrell