Awarded National Grant to Transform Computer Engineering Department
The grant was awarded through a program that supports radical changes to the training of undergraduate engineering students.
A revolutionary project to reimagine Cal Poly’s Computer Engineering Department has secured close to $2 million from the National Science Foundation as educators seek to transform engineering education on campus and across the country.
The highly prestigious award through NSF’s Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (IUSE/PFE: RED) program, which supports radical changes to the training of undergraduate engineering students, will fund the five-year Breaking the Binary project.
Through workshops, dialogue and critical mentoring, CPE students and faculty will examine their perceptions and beliefs to uncover implicit bias within the department, then reimagine a department that is designed for all its members, from curriculum to physical spaces.
“We want to make the department a better place for students, faculty and staff of different races, genders, sexual orientations and abilities, among other social identities,” said Computer Engineering Department Chair Lynne Slivovsky.
“College engineering departments are not doing the kind of work we are doing on this scale,” she said. “It’s revolutionary.”