Welcome to the CDEI Blog!

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Wow! It is finally here after months of discussion – the inaugural ASEE Committee on Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Blog!!

I’m not even sure when the conversations started, but our vision was clear from the beginning. We want an easily accessible forum to provide updates about CDEI. More importantly, we desire a place for CDEI community members to share their ideas and activities related to removing systemic barriers and creating inclusive environments in engineering so that all people can thrive.

For those of you not familiar with CDEI, I invite you to visit the pages under the About section of our website (https://diversity.asee.org/deicommittee/). CDEI exists as a diverse community of people seeking to understand how our engineering education culture perpetuates systemic inequities, and to remove the barriers that many confront in classrooms and workplaces. We only progress toward this goal by learning from and amplifying each other’s work and sharing what we know and do. Thus, CDEI’s core objectives include educating ourselves and our colleagues, recognizing important work, advocating for equitable policies, and partnering inside and outside ASEE to achieve the goal.

Through this inaugural post, I want to introduce you to three key initiatives we are launching or supporting to reach those objectives: 1) the CDEI blog; 2) CDEI Virtual Workshops; and 3) #EngineersShowUp – a Week of Critical Action and Advocacy to Change Cultures of Oppression in Engineering.

1. The CDEI Blog – CDEI Subcommittees will use this Blog to post updates and notices of resources and opportunities of interest to the CDEI community, e.g. special initiatives we work on or conference highlights. We also invite members of the community to propose blog posts to share brief research highlights, reports of impactful initiatives, and critical thought pieces. The posts are screened and edited. We especially encourage emerging scholars to share their work. If you are interested in proposing a post, please send a short overview of the post to CDEIchairs@asee.org.
   
   
2. CDEI Virtual Workshops – Through Virtual Workshops, the CDEI Professional Development subcommittee provides a venue to synchronously share and discuss projects, resources, and community concerns. We are launching this initiative the week of February 23^rd in support of item (3) the #EngineersShowUp initiative.
   
   
   • This initial Virtual Workshop is Engineers Show Up: Let’s Talk About Allyship (led by Brianna Benedict and the CDEI PD Virtual Workshop Team). It takes place, Monday, February 24, 2020, 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm (EST). To register, please follow this link: Engineers Show Up: Let’s Talk About Allyship. The workshop will be hosted via Zoom: https://vcu.zoom.us/j/341164721
     
     
   • If you are interested in facilitating a workshop in the future, please send a 500-750 word abstract to cdei.virtual@gmail.com.
     
     
3. #EngineersShowUp is an initiative to challenge the stereotype of the apathetic engineer and for engineers to show up in solidarity with one another as they challenge inequitable cultures in engineering. Visit their website (https://www.EngineersShowUp.org) to find inspiration and resources for actions you can take in your community. To demonstrate solidarity and to raise awareness of all that engineers do to fight against racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, the organizers ask that engineering community members use the twitter hashtag #EngineersShowUp next week and beyond to showcase their own and support others’ work in social justice.
   
   
   • In partnership with this initiative, the CDEI Professional Development subcommittee will host a Twitter Chat* on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 beginning at 4 pm ET. This Twitter Chat will include whatever topics members of the community wish to discuss. To join, make sure you are following the hashtag #EngineersShowUp. Also, please follow the CDEI twitter handle – @ASEEDiversity.

We look forward to having this be a space you find useful. Please check back regularly to see updates. Our goal is a new post about every two weeks – your contributions are welcome and needed!

Susan E. Walden

2019-20 CDEI Chair

*If you’ve never Twitter chatted before, don’t worry; it’s very easy and fun! First, get a Twitter account if you don’t already have one, and log in. Type #EngineersShowUp into the search box on Twitter at the start time. Thereafter all the tweets with the hashtag #EngineersShowUp will show up on your Twitter page. To participate, simply express your opinion by sending a tweet, and be sure to append the hashtag #EngineersShowUp so other members of the Twitter Chat see you are posting. Alternatively, automate the hashtag search and append feature by using the free service Tchat at http://www.tchat.io/.