Karen Davis’ office sits in the corner of Link Hall, with a large window facing the College Place bus stop. Day and night, students wave at her as they pass by. Some throw pebbles at the window to get her attention.

In April 2018, students in the college demanded change after the expulsion of Theta Tau, the professional engineering fraternity. Then-College of Engineering and Computer Science Dean Teresa Dahlberg appointed Davis as interim assistant dean to lead a new office that would examine the college’s diversity and culture: the Office of Inclusive Excellence. Davis has worked at SU since 2004.

In the past year, Davis has overseen the creation of the Inclusive Excellence Council, a group of students, faculty and staff from various departments and organizations. The council conducted a college-wide diversity audit and create a dialogue course designed to bring together students, faculty and staff.

“A deep look into our culture was something that we really had to do,” Davis said. “We had to listen to people, to hear people’s concerns and understand what type of treatment they felt they were receiving.”

The council worked with InterFaith Works — a Syracuse-based organization that aims to build understanding among people of different religions andraces — to create the dialogue sessions, offered as six-week elective course ECS 400 or 600. The dialogues first build trust and common ground between the participants, then go deeper into discussions of privilege to create understandings between people of different backgrounds, Davis said.

InterFaith Works has trained 29 people in the college to work as facilitators, Davis said, and 135 people have participated in the circles so far. All of the front-end staff on the first floor of Link Hall have gone through a dialogue session. Davis has set a goal to have 500 people volunteer for the course by the end of the spring 2021 semester.

Shiu-Kai Chin, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and facilitator for some of the dialogues, has a long history of social justice — teaching “Alternatives to Violence” workshops at Auburn Correctional Facility in the 1990s, for example, — and serves on InterFaith Works’ board of directors.

Chin said facilitators pay attention to moments of silence, when people might be uncomfortable, because that’s where the most learning takes place. One part of the dialogues includes a privilege walk, where participants stand in a line and move forward or stay behind depending on their answers to questions about their experiences.

At the end of the courses, participants are asked to set attainable goals of how they can improve moving forward.

Miguel Aguilera, president of SU’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, is currently enrolled in one of the dialogues. He also serves on the Inclusive Excellence Council.

The dialogues allow students, faculty and staff to have meaningful conversations about race, gender and discrimination, as well as learn how to discuss these issues in the workplace, Aguilera said.

“For me the biggest issue is communication,” he said. “The biggest reason Theta Tau happened is that people felt comfortable enough to say those things despite knowing those people exist.”

Serving on the council are the presidents of other cultural organizations: the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers and the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. Davis said each of the students acts as a liaison, relaying student concerns and informing them about the council’s plans.

Aguilera, a senior chemical engineering major, said he now feels more empowered to bring his concerns to the college’s dean or other upper-level administrators. Davis being appointed interim assistant dean showed Aguilera that the college was taking issues of diversity seriously after Theta Tau, he said.

Chin said the college followed the saying, “Never waste a good crisis.” Dahlberg moved quickly to establish the Office of Inclusive Excellence, appoint Davis and bring in InterFaith Works to create the dialogue course, he said.

“We were in a crisis,” Chin said. “I’m not glad for what happened, but I am glad for the response.”

Dahlberg left the college in March to become vice chancellor and provost of Texas Christian University. She said in an email that she decided to partner with InterFaith Works after listening to the SU community call for a more inclusive culture within the college. She said creating a position that addresses diversity and inclusion will help retain more diverse faculty and students.

“People start coming and knocking on my door and say, ‘Can I give you a suggestion? I have a suggestion,’” Davis said. “That means they bought in, and that means they’re on the train. It’s not only me on that train anymore.”

Talia Trackim | Digital Design Director

Several students in the college said their main concern about the college relating to diversity and inclusion is the lack of women professors and professors of color.

Elizabeth Tarangelo, a senior bioengineering major, is a volunteer for Engineering Ambassadors, a program that brings SU students to schools in the Syracuse City School District. Tarangelo serves on the Inclusive Excellence Council, and worked on the diversity audit conducted last fall.

The audit showed something everyone already knew, she said: the college did not have many women faculty members, and white and Asian men were represented disproportionately to the student body in some departments.

Talia Trackim | Digital Design Director

Women represent only 12.5% of tenured professors and 26 to 28% of tenure-track assistant and associate professors, according to data compiled by the Inclusive Excellence Council. There are no women professors at the distinguished professor or university professor level, and no women run research centers in the college. But Tarangelo said another fact was much more surprising to her.

“Women professors have slightly more credit hours that they’re teaching than men, but their research is vastly underfunded in comparison to male professors,” she said.

In 2018, the average funding for research by men professors in the college was $298,000. For women professors, the average was $66,000.

One of the council’s recommendations is to create more opportunities for women to run research centers so women professors can receive more sponsored funding for their research, Tarangelo said. The council also plans to develop a climate survey specific to the college and evaluate the college’s hiring and promotion processes.

When Tarangelo first joined the council, she was frustrated because she wanted more immediate change, she said.

“Now students are being listened to and people feel they can make a change,” she said. “Progress is kind of slow, but when you’re changing things that regard administration and different policies, it does take a while.”

Adia Gist, a sophomore chemical engineering major, said she sees the college is trying to be more inclusive. She gets Davis’ emails about the dialogues and the Inclusive Excellence Council.

The culture, though, still feels the same to her – she often has classes where she’s the only woman of color, or there is only one other black student. She said the college needs more professors and advisors of color.

“Definitely if I had more professors of color, I would feel more comfortable going to them to ask for extra help,” Gist said.

Yezully Retana-Moran, a senior aerospace engineering major, said she has seen students of color in the college struggle academically more often than their white peers — with some staying an extra year to finish their studies. She said this might happen because they don’t feel comfortable going to their peers for help, or they didn’t know other people with similar backgrounds were in their major. Her department only has two women professors, she said.

“I’m a Latina from Central America. I’m from the other side of the country, so I didn’t know anyone here,” Retana-Moran said. “Upstate New York is primarily Caucasian from my experience. When I got into the school, not only was I a girl, but it was culturally very different.”

The college sent people to the National Society of Black Engineers conference in March to try to recruit doctoral graduates, Davis said. To recruit more diverse candidates, Davis also plans to reach out to organizations like the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers when positions are open.

“It’s about widening your search. You can’t just put a search out there and take whoever you get,” Davis said. “You have to put more effort towards outreach in other areas, and that’s what we’re doing.”

When asked if changes to the college were long-term, Davis didn’t hesitate. “Oh, this is forever,” she said.

A model roller coaster sits on filing cabinets in Davis’ office. On Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day several years ago, a group of women engineering students at SU guided girls in elementary school to build the model.

The group that built the rollercoaster in Davis’ office sat so close to another group that one of their parts was taken by accident. They managed to put it together anyway. Davis said she’ll never get rid of the model because there are so many stories to tell from it.

“And that was just a bunch of women that put that together, a bunch of young girls,” she said.

Davis said events like Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day show kids from underrepresented backgrounds that they can become an engineer if they want to.

Before she came to SU, Davis worked as a recruiter for Carrier Corporation, the heating and air-conditioning company for which the Carrier Dome is named. She often went to City College of New York to recruit students. The education there costs less, and the school has less resources, she said.

On one visit, the students had a question for Davis:

“You know why we’re the best students, Karen? Because we do so much with so little.”

Published on April 17, 2019 at 10:34 pm

Contact Casey: casey@dailyorange.com | @caseydarnell_