4.3 Article

Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Increasing Diversity and Community Participation to Achieve Environmental and Social Justice

Journal

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SCIENCE
Volume 38, Issue 5, Pages 288-297

Publisher

MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC
DOI: 10.1089/ees.2020.0148

Keywords

classroom action research; community-based participatory research; diversity; engineering education; environmental justice

Funding

  1. National Science Foundation [1827251, 1735320]
  2. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [5T34GM008303]
  3. National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) grant
  4. Direct For Education and Human Resources
  5. Division Of Graduate Education [1735320] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
  6. Office Of Internatl Science &Engineering
  7. Office Of The Director [1827251] Funding Source: National Science Foundation

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Communities of color face disproportionate burdens in environmental pollution and policy influence, while minority students and faculty are underrepresented in the field of environmental engineering in the United States. Recommendations from a workshop at the 2019 AEESP Conference emphasized the importance of adopting a broader definition of research impact and supporting community-based participatory research methods to promote diversity and inclusion in academia. Workshop discussions highlighted potential causal relationships between academic skills, community skills, mutual trust, and shared knowledge in the co-creation of research.
Communities of color are disproportionately burdened by environmental pollution and by obstacles to influence policies that impact environmental health. Black, Hispanic, and Native American students and faculty are also largely underrepresented in environmental engineering programs in the United States. Nearly 80 participants of a workshop at the 2019 Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Research and Education Conference developed recommendations for reversing these trends. Workshop participants identified factors for success in academia, which included adopting a broader definition for the impact of research and teaching. Participants also supported the use of community-based participatory research and classroom action research methods in engineering programs for recruiting, retaining, and supporting the transition of underrepresented students into professional and academic careers. However, institutions must also evolve to recognize the academic value of community-based work to enable faculty, especially underrepresented minority faculty, who use it effectively, to succeed in tenure promotions. Workshop discussions elucidated potential causal relationships between factors that influence the co-creation of research related to academic skills, community skills, mutual trust, and shared knowledge. Based on the discussions from this workshop, we propose a pathway for increasing diversity and community participation in the environmental engineering discipline by exposing students to community-based participatory methods, establishing action research groups for faculty, broadening the definition of research impact to improve tenure promotion experiences for minority faculty, and using a mixed methods approach to evaluate its impact.

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