History
The PURPOSE Institute was borne out of an ongoing need for the mentoring of junior engineering faculty and the celebration of the successes of faculty at all ranks of the academy. NSF sponsored minority faculty development workshops starting in 2001 were developed by a team of faculty primarily in chemical engineering. In addition, a group of chemical engineering faculty in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers formed the Minority Faculty Forum to provide peer support and identify the minority faculty throughout the United States. This group was a subcommittee of the Minority Affairs Committee of AIChE.
The need for a network of faculty was the primary driving force for the Institute formally initiated in 2004. The Institute was introduced in 2004 at a National Science Foundation (NSF) workshop for minority faculty development, when a meeting was convened for 15-20 tenured URM faculty present. The main focus of this meeting was to discuss the pertinent concerns over the status (e.g., numbers and climate) for faculty of color at their own institutions. The concept of an institute mining the experiences (e.g., successes and failures) of current URM faculty and communicating that base of knowledge to engineering deans and department heads was deemed a necessary component for the diversification of colleges of engineering.
Grant developed the PURPOSE Institute strategic plan and began building the Institute infrastructure during the summer of 2005. This work was the focus of her 2005 Boeing Senior Fellowship in residence at the National Academy of Engineering Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Educators (CASEE) and Howard University’s College of Engineering. Since the spring of 2005, the PURPOSE Institute has convened several summits attended by a diverse group of URM faculty and administrators from engineering departments across the United States representing (1) Research One universities, (2) Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and (3) Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).
These Think Tank meetings provided a forum for peer to peer discussions among current URM engineering faculty and administrators regarding not only their perspective on recruiting, but also their outlook on maintaining engineering faculty of color. In addition, they provided the framework for the ongoing dialogue that is essential to the PURPOSE Institute's structure. They were attended by mainly African American and Hispanic engineering faculty. The PURPOSE Institute Think Tank peer meetings bring together the “only lonely” engineering faculty of color into a venue where their majority status facilitates open and insightful discussions. Through this dynamic, the PURPOSE Institute provides a platform for focused communication on increasing and maintaining diverse engineering faculty that is not possible to replicate on individual campuses due to the sheer lack of number of faculty of color in engineering colleges. The ability of deans and department heads to glean knowledge from a group of successful (i.e., tenured, senior) underrepresented faculty is critical to diversity efforts.
One way the PURPOSE Institute advances efforts for diversifying engineering faculty is by fulfilling an essential need. “Providing a sense of community and achieving excellence” as Advisory Group member Dr. Shirley Jackson states is a necessary component for diversification of largely white and largely male engineering institutions. Moreover, the partnership of deans and administrators working with successful URM engineering faculty outside of and beyond the confines of their respective institutions creates a national community structure dedicated to achieving excellence.
Additionally, achieving excellence in widely diversifying engineering faculty requires sharing the knowledge of both large and small pockets of success. As PURPOSE Advisory Group member, and Founding Member of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Dr. Eloy Rodriguez states, “There have been some successful initiatives on campus [ Cornell University] to increase the percentage of [underrepresented minority] hires in the sciences and engineering. There is, however, a need to learn, in an organized manner, from the successes of other institutions”. The structure of the PURPOSE Institute is designed to learn from individuals and institutions in addition to sustaining an ongoing dialogue necessary to establish a diverse engineering faculty.
