Best Practices for Cultivating Diversity

Our Action Plan

1. Establish a central point of contact for diversity efforts: Duke's Pratt School of Engineering appointed Professor Monty Reichert as Associate Dean for Diversity and Ph.D. Education on July 6, 2010. His leadership and expertise in promoting diversity are nationally recognized through published work on the techniques he developed in his role as DGS. His work on diversity has led to receiving the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Duke Graduate School, the Pioneer Award from the Samuel DuBois Cook Society, and the Catalyst for Institutional Change Award from the Quality Education for Minorities Network. The role of diversity in recruitment and strengthening the PhD program are of course interrelated, but Pratt will benefit across the board from having a named leader with Monty's expertise and responsibility for promoting diversity in all areas. 
2. Report and publish the numbers: In order for us to create the future we want, we need to know who we are. We commit to publishing information about the makeup of our student body, and faculty and staff.
3. Enhance outreach to minority students in undergraduate recruitment and retention: Undergraduate admissions are a highly centralized university-wide process vital to recruitment. We realize that high school students are highly influenced by the impact of role models. We commit to finding opportunities to bring prominent alumni and students from diverse and underrepresented populations to undergraduate admissions events, and to nurturing our engineering student clubs and society charters to ensure all students find the support they need to succeed.
4. Create a pipeline for minority students in Duke's engineering graduate programs: Develop more proactive methods to leverage existing and new summer REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) programs. Develop recruitment materials and sponsor current graduate students travel to engineering conferences held by organizations aimed at full diversity and inclusion, such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). 
5. Invite more female and minority colleagues to give seminars at the Pratt school: Make a concerted effort to ensure we bring minority and female colleages to speak at Pratt, and better coordinate those visits with NSBE and SHPE student groups, and the Society of Women Engineers and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) organizations on campus.
6. Build bridges between Duke's Pratt School and the NC A&T College of Engineering and North Carolina State University