Revisiting the question as to whether marketing is the solution for engineering's ongoing inability to attract significant numbers of anyone other than white males: We might ask who's doing it right. Turns out, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) did just that, and their newly released report shows the largest producer of women & African Americans with B.S. degrees in information technology/computer science is a for-profit institution, Strayer University. Not one of your Ivies or big state research institutions.
You may shocked - shocked! - to learn the following about faculty members and nontraditional students from the report's executive summary:
- faculty members generally have the strongest positive views of male students,
- faculty members have mixed views of female students, and
- faculty members have "decidedly negative" opinions of underrepresented minorities.
(No word yet on whether "male students" includes anyone other than whites. Or are those white males just lifting up the positive view of men in general?)
So what are we to do? Expand remote learning coursework offerings. Support 2-year institutions, HCBUs and Hispanic-serving institutions where (surprisingly) non-white males can be found. Provide financial aid for part-time students. Provide more internships. Strengthen enforcement of workplace anti-discrimination laws (ahem - see post below RE use of executive search firms).
Ho-hum. Sooooooo much more boring than marketing.
3:55:04 PM 
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