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Dear Cockrell School Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers,
Happy Lunar New Year and the beginning of Black History Month!
Many of you will recall participating in the Cockrell School Climate survey in March 2021 or reading about the preliminary findings over the summer. We’re excited to be able to share the full report of the results. Many thanks go to the Climate Survey Team and the tireless effort of biomedical engineering graduate student Nikhith Kalkunte and mechanical engineering professor Maura Borrego who have written the report and its recommendations.
We strongly encourage you to read it in its entirety, especially the qualitative comments – hearing peoples’ experiences in their own words can be really valuable. You will find that peoples’ experiences in the Cockrell School of Engineering are themselves very diverse – some people feel unsupported while others feel well supported.
In looking at the report’s findings that provide ways we can improve the experiences of all students, staff, and faculty in the school, we wanted to highlight a few notable findings:
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- Multiple respondents across diverse roles in the school noted the attention to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity but called out a need to increase the visibility of other aspects of diversity, like LGBTQ, disabilities, and first-generation status.
- Many students drew attention to the fact that it is important to them to see professors and leaders who represent them and noted a particular lack of Black, Hispanic, women, and LGBTQ faculty.
- Many challenges surfaced in the open-ended responses point to experiences of microaggressions related to disability, race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation or the faculty’s lack of awareness of well-being of students.
- International graduate students noted feeling particularly marginalized.
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The good news is, there are really actionable ideas in the report and its recommendations that can start to directly address the challenges identified in the survey. We plan to repeat the climate survey on a regular basis (currently, the thinking is every two years).
In the meantime, there are concrete things that each of us can do. The Climate Survey Team created a long list that is included in the full report. However, we’ve called out a few that are more specific to students here and are directly tied to the report’s findings:
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- Start conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in your classes, cohorts, research groups, or student organizations. For help getting started, see the list of discussion questions suggested in the full Climate Survey Report.
- If you are a teaching assistant, check out the Graduate Student Teaching Preparation Series, offered by the Faculty Innovation Center. Many sessions help participants create more inclusive spaces for their students.
- Take a look at the Diversity Education Certificate courses offered by DDCE through UTLearn. Think about which provides the most potential for supporting your professional development, then sign up for it.
- Don’t forget to explore and use the Advocacy Network for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars, and recommend it to fellow graduate students.
- Share your experiences with Cockrell School leadership, course professors, and staff members. Let them know how they can better support and include you while also holding yourself accountable for fostering a welcoming environment.
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We hope you will take some time this semester to explore these suggestions and read the full Climate Survey Report. However you choose to engage, we look forward to having more conversations with you all around how you are feeling in the Cockrell School and ways we can continue to foster and grow an inclusive, welcoming, and supportive Texas Engineering community.
Sincerely,
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Roger T. Bonnecaze
Interim Dean
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Christine Julien
Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
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