Power Skills Workshop

Power Skills Workshop: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

The ASCE Dallas Branch is pleased to offer our members a Power Skills Workshop on “Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” Registration for this event will be limited to the first 30 registrants and will come with a $20 registration fee that will be donated by the ASCE Dallas Branch to an organization committed to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the DFW area. Full details on the workshop can be found below.

REGISTER HERE

Purpose and Background:

Why does my organization struggle to attract and retain engineers from diverse backgrounds? How can I contribute to and foster an inclusive workplace climate? How do societal inequities impact engineering education and practice? If you have ever asked these questions, this training will provide you with a starting point for answering them. It includes a series of thought‐provoking interactive sessions that are designed to challenge the status quo, promote introspection, and inspire and motivate change. The sessions are based on three fundamental principles:

• diversity cannot be achieved and sustained without equity, inclusion, and justice
• strategies for improving justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion must address systemic barriers in order to be effective
• fostering an inclusive workplace climate and culture is everyone’s responsibility, not just that of persons from marginalized identities. This workshop will include practical examples that cover multiple and intersectional identities including race, ethnicity, (dis)ability, gender, class, age, and sexual orientation and will illuminate strategies for participants to become change agents in their organizations

Learning Outcomes:

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:

• differentiate among justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion
• identify attitudes and behaviors that are counter to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion
• engage in behaviors that contribute to a just, equitable, and inclusive workplace climate
• recognize biases – explicit and implicit, positive and negative – and their impacts on workplace climate and culture; and
• apply principles of equity and inclusion to ethical decision making

Program Outline:

Introduction

• Basics of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
• The Engineer’s Role and Why It Matters
• Format: Brief talks with concept map exercise

Morning Break

Climate Change: Identifying and Overcoming Factors that Hinder Workplace Inclusion – Part I

• Climate Factors
• Social Networks
• Recruitment and Hiring
• Format: Brief talks with facilitated discussions and small group exercises

Lunch

Climate Change: Identifying and Overcoming Factors that Hinder Workplace Inclusion – Part II

• Advancement and Pay
• Inclusive Communication
• External Stressors and Societal Inequities
• Format: Brief talks with facilitated discussions and small group exercises

Afternoon Break

Ethics: Do the Right Thing

• Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion as a Matter of Ethics
• Equitable Stakeholder Engagement
• Case study with role play exercise

5 Ways to Maintain the Status Quo in Your Organization (and Actionable Strategies to Effect Change)

• Wrap Session and Evaluation

Instructor Bio:

Dr. Yvette E. Pearson is recognized globally for 25 years of contributions to engineering education and research. A Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), her mission is to inspire, impel, and institutionalize change towards ubiquitous inclusion (UI) so that it becomes a universal standard of engineering education and practice. Founder and Lead Consultant of The Pearson Evaluation and Education Research Group (The PEER Group) and an Associate Dean in the Brown School of Engineering at Rice University, Dr. Pearson has led teams to acquire and administer roughly $6.4M in funding to support projects designed to ensure full participation of persons from traditionally marginalized identities in engineering education. Through workshops and personal consulting, Dr. Pearson’s clients and workshop attendees have secured over $10M in funding to support their initiatives. Dr. Pearson is the Inaugural Chair of Members of Society Advancing an Inclusive Culture (MOSAIC), ASCE's Board‐level advisory council on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In her previous role as Vice Chair of ASCE’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, she was part of the team that led initial efforts to include DEI in ASCE’s Code of Ethics. Among her numerous awards and honors are ABET's Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity and Inclusion, ASCE's Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award, and the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. Dr. Pearson hosts Engineering Change Podcast, which is focused on overcoming barriers to DEI in engineering education. She is a registered Professional Engineer, has served seven years as a Program Evaluator for the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET and was appointed to join the EAC as a Commissioner, effective July 2020.