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Not your heroes, holiday, t-shirts and festivals: How to operationalize DEI
Karen Thomas-Brown, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Diversity Equity and Inclusion
College of Engineering
Nationally, STEM professionals constitute only 5% of the workforce, yet are responsible for more than 50% of economic expansion. However only 30% of students pursuing a bachelor’s degree initially choose a STEM major and STEM interest is particularly low in underrepresented groups. More and more colleges nationwide have committed to advancing diversity in STEM by creating programs to improve outcomes for female-identifying and/or racially and ethnically minoritized students. However, much existing DEI work focuses on the successes of singular college programs.
The College of Engineering (CoE) is one of the largest in the United States, with over 9,800 employees and students. CoE embarked on growing a more inclusive community of engineers. What is unique about CoE’s DEI is that we use data-drive strategies to operationalize and infuse DEI work across the College to engage all levels of staff, faculty and students in efforts to build a more inclusive environment. CoE aligned with the recommendation of cultural, social-cognition, and political models to implement strategic and data-driven planning to implement DEI work across all levels of staff, students and faculty. Examples of how we have infused and operationalized DEI work that will be discussed are: 1) launching a fellowship program to provide DEI training for professors across departments; 2) providing anti-bias training and national demographic data for faculty hiring committees; 3) building a DEI team with representatives from departments across CoE; 4) providing DEI trainings and community conversations; 5) implementing anti-bias reporting platform; 6) bringing student support programs under one umbrella of a shared leadership model; 6) launching data dashboards and an impact report provide transparency around successes and areas for improvement.
Dr. Thomas-Brown is passionate about innovation, inclusion, and social and public good in higher education and beyond. She has dedicated her career to developing and implementing innovative programs that foster inclusive communities and empower all students, faculty, and staff.
Karen joined the University of Washington from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where she was a professor in the College of Education, Health and Human Services with research and teaching in the Department of Education and the Department of Social Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. and bachelor’s degree in geography, specializing in social and urban structures, focusing on the sociological variables that shape human systems. She has professional certificates in Executive Leadership, Performance Leadership, Change Management, and Diversity and Inclusion (DEI) from Cornell University.
As a faculty member in Michigan, she led the interdisciplinary research space covering themes such as food and housing insecurity among college students, teacher in-service professional development, and immigrant teacher outcomes in urban school districts in the US. Research themes that she has published extensively on. Karen’s additional work includes leading her College’s program review and being the disciplinary lead (social studies and geography) for the college’s reaccreditation through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). She was also a geography content writer for the C3 Social Studies Framework published by the National Council for Social Studies and a Primary Investigator (PI) for the Wayne Schools Increasing Teacher Capacity initiative. This initiative revolutionized teacher training, residency, and internships to meet district-level needs in the Detroit metro area.
Karen’s leadership extends outside academia. She directed a diversity and inclusion consultancy specializing in assessing and designing diversity and inclusion policy, assessing practices, measuring outcomes, and designing and implementing leadership training. She has led a series of corporate conversations on race in America in response to the protests over racial injustice and inequities.
As Associate Dean of DEI at UW College of Engineering, Karen leads the college’s ongoing efforts to become an accessible, welcoming, and inclusive community. She has developed best practices and guidelines that strengthen the College’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. In collaboration with the Dean and other campus leaders, Karen developed and implemented programs that increase the participation and engagement of diverse and underrepresented groups across the College.
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