Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit

A Big Ten ++ Engineering Workshop

October 16-18 | Penn State University Park

In engineering, we use our individual perspectives of identity, culture, and life experiences to uncover solutions to society's largest challenges, and we make the most impact when we harness the power of diverse ideas and nurture talent from all groups.

To do so, new solutions for equity and inclusivity are essential. To help engineering programs across the nation craft these solutions, the Penn State College of Engineering will host the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Summit: A Big Ten ++ Engineering Workshop on October 16–18 at the University Park campus.

Academic partners from Big Ten ++ universities will gather to discuss and develop enhanced strategies to integrate DEI principles into engineering undergraduate curriculums and increase faculty DEI knowledge and skills, including creating inclusive classrooms and addressing common challenges.

Agenda

Keynote Speakers

Tracie Marcella Addy

Tracie Marcella Addy, Ph.D., MPhil (she/her), is the Associate Dean of Teaching & Learning at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania where she is responsible for working with instructors across all divisions and ranks to develop and administer programming related to the teacher-scholar model from classroom teaching to the scholarship of teaching. She received her B.S. from Duke University, MPhil from Yale University, and Ph.D. in Science Education at North Carolina State Education. She is the Director of the Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship and serves ex officio on the Teaching & Learning Committee. Her center’s many initiatives include a highly rated academy focused on inclusivity for instructors that integrates students as partners.

In addition to these roles, she performs scholarship on teaching and learning and educational development, primarily focusing on learner-centered practices including active learning and inclusive teaching. Her work has been featured in a variety of academic journals as well as other venues such as Inside Higher Ed and University Business and she has been an invited guest on a number of podcasts such as Teaching in Higher Ed, Tea for Teaching, Teaching for Student Success, and Dead Ideas in Teaching & Learning.

Dr. Addy is co-author of the book What Inclusive Instructors Do: Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (2021) and a frequently invited keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. 

Ebony Omotola McGee

Ebony Omotola McGee, Ph.D., is a professor of Diversity and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. She investigates what it means to be racially marginalized and minoritized in the context of learning and achieving in STEM higher education and the STEM professions. She studies the racialized structures and institutional barriers that adversely affect the education and career trajectories of underrepresented groups of color, focusing particularly on STEM entrepreneurship. 

Her scholarship involves exploring the social, material, and health costs of academic achievement and problematizing traditional forms of success in higher education, with an unapologetic focus on Black folx within the STEM ecosystem. She received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant to investigate the role of marginalization in undercutting success in STEM through psychological stress, interrupted STEM career trajectories, impostor phenomenon, and other debilitating race-related trauma for Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx doctoral students. 

Planning Committee

• Alaine Allen – Carnegie Mellon University
• Christian A. Castro - University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Alex Cicalese – University of Michigan
• Stephanie Cutler – Penn State
• Ivan Esparragoza – Penn State
• Annette Jacobson – Carnegie Mellon University
• Christine Julien – University of Texas at Austin
• Thomas Litzinger – Penn State (retired)
• Jay Mann – University of Illinois
• Sara Pozzi – University of Michigan
• Lauren Shackleford – University of Michigan
• Ashleigh Wright – University of Illinois
• Conrad Zapanta – Carnegie Mellon University
• Sarah Zappe – Penn State

A special thank you to our administrative support: 

• Lisa Petrine
• Lindsey Garner
• Corby Williams