DEI committee vision
The vision of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
committee is that the department will be a bioengineering community in which every student,
staff person, faculty member, and alumnus feels welcomed and has equitable opportunities to
succeed.

DEI committee mission
The DEI committee supports the Fischell Department of Bioengineering in creating a diverse
community that is welcoming to every student, staff person, faculty member, and alumnus and
that promotes equity within and beyond the community.
Specifically, our committee will:

● Provide our community with learning opportunities centered around DEI.
● Empower our community to change engineering and educational practices that
negatively impact people from groups traditionally underrepresented in
engineering.
● Remove barriers to enable every member of our community to reach their
potential.
● Inspire our community to positively impact justice and equity locally and
globally.

Goal: Enhance the department's DEI efforts to ensure improved visibility, transparency, and accountability. 

The DEI committee is working with the department and the BIOE communications team to elevate visibility of the department's DEI efforts. In addition to soliciting feedback from the wider BIOE community, this goal is critical in ensuring transparency and in holding the DEI committee and wider department accountable to their stated DEI goals. 

  • Create and regularly update the department's DEI website. The committee will work with the BIOE communications team to develop a DEI website that offers regular updates, enabling website visitors to track progress the department's progress toward achieving DEI objectives. 
     
  • Work with Engineering IT to develop a DEI-specific calendar of events. The BIOE communications team, in partnership with the DEI committee, will work with EIT to utilize an online events calendar that highlights BIOE and Clark School events that touch on topics related to DEI goals/objectives. 
     
  • Incorporate DEI events into weekly department emails and BIOE social media posts. The committee will work with the BIOE communications team to ensure that weekly seminar/events emails sent to current students, faculty, and staff will include DEI events both within and outside the department. In addition, the BIOE communications team will work to improve inclusivity in all social media posts. The communications team is committed to hosting regular social media takeovers to ensure that diverse voices and perspectives are given an opportunity to shape BIOE content and promote causes/research that hold personal significance. 
     
  • Improve accessibility across all BIOE affiliated websites and social media platforms. The DEI committee is working with BIOE communications to incorporate accessibility reccomendations across all digital platforms. This includes ensuring that all images offer alt text, all websites follow proper markup techniques for structuring content, and all digital content utilizes appropriate color contrasts when conveying information.
     
  • Incorporate closed captioning in all videos and live events. The DEI committee is working with BIOE communications and the wider department to ensure that all video and digital events utilize closed captioning. 
     
  • Improve representation in A. James Clark Hall. The DEI committee is working with the department to ensure improved representation and inclusivity in the BIOE work, classroom, and lab spaces. Current efforts include designing a new Awards Wall in A. James Clark Hall that honors student, faculty, and post-doc recipients of on-campus awards and prominent fellowships. The DEI committee is also working with the BIOE communications team to ensure improved representation in Clark Hall digital collateral.

Goal: Broaden the department's efforts to address and confront bias in engineering design and engineering literature. 

The DEI committee is working with BIOE faculty to develop innovative strategies to minimize and eliminate unconscious bias across all BIOE research projects and programs. BIOE faculty are working to integrate concepts that address bias in engineering design in BIOE coursework, including across multiple required courses. 

  • Current efforts include incorporating an Anti-racist Design module in BIOE457: Biomedical Electronics & Instrumentation. Topics covered include a deep dive into how technology can be democratic or autoritarian, as well as equializing or discriminating with respect to race; race-based medicine and public health disparities; and racist symbolism in tech. Similar topics are addressed in BIOE ethics instruction and design for global health coursework. 

Goal: Enhance the pool of diverse faculty candidates for future searches.

The committee is working with the department to improve the faculty hiring process to ensure a more diverse candidate pool for future searches. The following list highlights some of the current efforts.

  • Create a visiting scholar program. The committee will work with the department to advertise an opportunity for senior graduate students and post-docs to apply to work at the University of Maryland for a defined time. The committee is committed to ensuring a focus on HBCUs, minority-serving institutions, and non-R1 schools. Extensive efforts should be made to include research summaries, techniques, and equipment lists from participating faculty.  The committee is also committed to ensure that visiting students and post-docs are integrated into the BIOE department such that they receive appropriate follow-up communications upon completion of their work. One of the primary challenges the committee seeks to address is the need to develop a long-term plan to fund visiting scholars. Building on these efforts, the committee aims to expand this program to include local undergraduate students who are completing a research thesis.
     
  • Build relationships with research mentors at home institutions. The committee will work with the department to cultivate relationships with the visiting scholars' research mentors from their home institutions. 
     
  • Build and maintain a diverse list of BIOE researchers at all career/research levels. The committee will work with various offices of the BIOE department to maintain communications with a wider contact list to foster engagement and create new opportunities for collaboration.
     
  • Display DEI efforts prominently on the BIOE department website. The committee will work with BIOE communications staff to ensure that our DEI efforts and commitments are made public and prominent. In addition, the committee maintains a commitment to transparency and accountability as we work to foster growth in these areas.

Goal: Provide consistent, impactful training to faculty on topics relating to diversity and inclusion.

The committee is working with the department to expand DEI training. The following list highlights some of the current efforts.

  • Develop a semester-based training plan focusing on consistent topics. Each semester, the DEI committee plans to focus on a single topic to be addressed in-depth, with consistency, throughout the term.
     
  • Bi-weekly DEI discussions during the department faculty & staff meeting. The DEI committee maintains a dedicated portion of the department's bi-weekly faculty and staff meetings. This includes regular, small-group conversations and contextually relevant case studies. DEI committee members will help facilitate breakout discussions.
     
  • Support from Office of Diversity & Inclusion. The DEI committee is in close communications with ODI regarding both best practices and ways to integrate existing ODI trainings into the BIOE faculty training plan.
     
  • Create an online submission form to invite anoynmous  feedback from all BIOE community members. The DEI committee maintains a graduate student feedback form and an undergraduate student feedback form, as well as a digital suggestion box for faculty and staff. The goal is that the DEI committee can tie faculty training macro-level topics to items that come up frequently via departmental concerns/feedback.

Goal: Increase the participation of underrepresented minority students in research.

The DEI committee is working with the BIOE Academic/Student Affairs office to survey student interest in research and to identify new ways to connect students with unique opportunities. This includes addressing the following:

  • Creating a space that offers an equal opportunity for all. The committee is working to reduce the barrier to participation in research for students.
     
  • Provide mentorship training to graduate students and PIs. Committee members have suggested resources such as the National Research Mentoring Network and TerrapinsConnect.
     
  • Confront the money issue. The committee recognizes that students are often faced with the choice between volunteering for research or securing paid employment; for many, there is no choice – and this means students often pass on invaluable research experience. The commitee is working to identify funding opportunities so that students no longer have to make that choice. Currently, the committee is exploring advice/opportunities through LSAMP,  federal work study, and grants.

Goal: Enhance speaker diversity in terms of race, gender, LGBTQ, research area, career level, and university/institution type.

The committee is working with the department to create a diverse list of speakers to invite for seminars. This process involves the following steps:

  • Seminar organizer(s) email all faculty to collect speaker names
  • Graduate students suggest one speaker per semester
  • Post-docs suggest one speaker per semester
  • DEI committee suggests one speaker per semester

The DEI committee and BIOE department chair will work together to review the speaker invitation list to help ensure diversity. 

If an invited speaker is not able to participate in a seminar, the BIOE person/organization who extended the invite will ask another speaker who represents a similar diversity cateogry.


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