USABE is focused on several initiatives geared toward supporting underrepresented students in the SEAS community. Our initiatives fall within three main focus areas: advocacy, student-faculty engagement, and community engagement. Read about our action plans below. For any questions about these initiatives or ideas for future initiatives, please reach out to a board member.
Annual Report
Each year, USABE publishes a report detailing our past events and initiatives. To learn more about USABE’s work in the SEAS community throughout the 2022-2023 academic year, please view our annual report.
Current Initiatives
Advocacy
USABE strives to understand the shared experience(s) of URM students in SEAS and communicate both concerns and strategies for support for administration. Through feedback from our semesterly open forums and student surveys, we identify key issues for underrepresented students with the goal of improving their experiences as students in SEAS. We then share these student concerns with the Dean of Engineering, Associate Dean for DEI, and Director of ODEI as well as faculty through department-wide faculty meetings. For the 2023-2024 school year, USABE will be represented on the University Council and have the opportunity to advocate for student concerns at the University level. Below are some key issues USABE is focusing on:
TA Training: Students have brought up experiences regarding microaggressive behavior with TAs in SEAS classes. We have proposed incorporating a DEI module into TA training and worked closely with the Dean and Associate Dean of Engineering to pilot a DEI module in Fall 2023.
Diverse Faculty Hiring: From our Student Surveys, underrepresented students tend to disagree more with the statement that there are faculty in SEAS that relate to their identity. As faculty role models are extremely important to underrepresented student success, USABE is advocating for more underrepresented student involvement in diverse faculty hiring evaluations.
Mid-semester Feedback: While there are currently exit surveys for all classes, students have advocated for more opportunities to provide feedback on professors, TAs, and course content throughout the semester. USABE is advocating to implement mid-semester feedback forms to ensure student input in the classroom is emphasized and used to create more equitable learning environments.
DEI in Course Curricula: From our Student Surveys, students are mostly supportive or neutral about integrating DEI into technical coursework. We believe DEI is a vital component of engineering education and are advocating for more DEI modules and focus in technical courses. We are also supporting the MEAM DEI Taskforce with their DEI certificate initiative, which would recognize students for dedicating part of their undergraduate coursework to classes focused on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Student-Faculty Engagement
Facilitating meaningful connections between students and faculty around diversity, equity, and inclusion is critical to bolstering students’ sense of belonging and community. USABE engages with SEAS faculty passionate about increasing visibility toward DEI topics by creating spaces for student-faculty interactions.
Faculty Events: USABE has two main events that allow students to engage with faculty in a more casual setting. The first is the Faculty Fireside Chat Series, which gives students the opportunity to connect personally with a few faculty in a smaller setting. Our new, larger-scale Student-Faculty Mixer debuted in March 2023, where we featured more faculty with both lightning talks and discussions. We plan to continue both of these events in the following year.
Faculty Pledge List: The Faculty Pledge List serves as a tangible means to showcase faculty engagement and their dedication to actively engage with and advocate for the needs of underrepresented students within SEAS. After launching this list in the 2021-2022 school year, we grew the list by 88% in the 2022-2023 school year. We hope to continue the growth of the list in the following year.
Student Advocacy Award: The student advocacy award recognizes faculty who are dedicated to URM students through being a leader and mentor in/outside of the classroom. The nominees are reviewed with the combined insights of our constituent groups. In 2023, we awarded Dr. Brittany Shields with the award, and we plan to further establish and promote the award next year.
Community Engagement
Fostering a community within underrepresented students enhances their personal and professional success. By coordinating informal spaces for students to connect with URM undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni, USABE works to expose underrepresented students to a variety of career and mentorship opportunities and strengthen connections within their communities.
Alumni Connections: USABE offers opportunities for students to connect with professional development resources by engaging with Penn Engineering alumni. We hold an alumni panel (virtually in past years) in the fall where students can learn about the academic and professional experiences of recent underrepresented Penn Engineering Graduates. In April 2023, we held our first in-person event, our new Alumni Mixer. This was a unique opportunity for students to engage with alumni through fun, casual activities. To stay connected with our alumni, we have an alumni listserv that includes monthly USABE updates and ways for alumni to stay involved. We also have an alumni database with alumni from our constituent groups who are interested in connecting with URM students for mentorship.
Graduate Student Connections: Graduate students can provide underrepresented URM undergraduates with mentorship and introduce them to academia/graduate school as a potential path in the future. In the 2022-2023 school year, our board introduced a new position: a Graduate Student Ambassador. We also held our first-ever Graduate Student Panel in March 2023, where four graduate students shared their educational/professional paths. We are excited to continue connecting graduate students with underrepresented undergraduates through a potential mentorship program in the future.
First-year Engagement: USABE focuses primarily on two main aspects of facilitating undergraduate connections: first-year resources and constituent group support. In the beginning of the school year, we hold the “Launching into SEAS: Underrepresented @ Penn Engineering'' NSO preceptorial, which provides incoming engineering first-years with the resources to succeed as they navigate their first year in SEAS. In Fall 2021, USABE launched a First-year Ambassador Program, which provides opportunities for programming, leadership, and relationship building for a small cohort of first-years. We continued that program last year and are eager to welcome a new cohort of First-year Ambassadors this fall!
Constituent Group Engagement: USABE also works closely with our constituent groups to support their missions, initiatives, and events. By engaging with these groups, USABE works to increase the sense of community within underrepresented engineers. We also collaborate with our constituents frequently through events such as our E-week social with NSBE and SHPE.
Past Initiatives
Freshmen Mentorship Program
Underrepresented students often have a harder time adjusting to their first years in college. To provide mentorship opportunities for underclassmen to connect with upperclassmen, USABE held a Freshman Mentorship Program in Spring 2022. By matching students based on major and interest, underclassmen had the opportunity to gain valuable advice on navigating the challenges of college while upperclassmen had the opportunity to pass on knowledge they have gained in their time at Penn.
Muslim Student Prayer Space
In collaborating with the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI), and the Dean’s office, USABE helped establish a prayer space in engineering open to all Penn students. The space has been made available in Hayden Hall (3320 Smith Walk) in room 120C and is open from 7 am - 5pm, Monday - Friday.
Study Spaces
Many engineering students have trouble finding places to study or work in engineering buildings. Other buildings on campus have GSRs that can be reserved, but engineering does not have similar spaces. We have compiled the following list of possible study spots to help you find a good place to study or work with friends! Click here for more information.
Student Development Workshop Series
Because underrepresented students are more prone to missing out on the resources the University has to offer, USABE’s student development workshop series connected students with Penn resources to promote academic, professional, and personal development. USABE has partnered with on-campus centers such as CAPS, Weingarten, and Career Services to host strategy sessions and workshops. Most recently, the Weingarten Workshop (Oct. 2021) provided students with insights on improving academic achievement. Through partnering with Career Services, students had the opportunity to develop their resumes in a Resume and Internship Search Workshop (Feb. 2022). Survey data from these workshops demonstrated that students were much more likely to seek out resources after attending our events.