What Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion means to the UW Bioengineering Community

Towards Justice, we believe that engineers must understand the social justice aspects of technology research and development practices, and are therefore including these topics in our curriculum. Towards Equity, we believe that admissions, hiring and retention practices must utilize best practices shown to overcome institutional and individual biases. Our Department values Diversity as individual differences (e.g., personality, prior knowledge, and life experiences) and group/social differences (e.g., race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, and ability as well as cultural, political, religious, or other affiliations)1. We seek to have our educational and research programs represent the diversity of our country. Towards Inclusion, the Department focuses on intentionally creating a welcoming environment for everyone, absent of negative feelings and experiences such as fear, insecurity, social tensions, and unaddressed microaggressions, as well as fostering active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity (1,2).  These efforts are multi-dimensional and include collaborations with numerous UW programs, recruitment efforts, policies, curriculum, practices, faculty/staff promotions, decision making, and mentoring and continuing education for members of our community.

Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee

The UW Bioengineering JEDI committee has been tasked with developing mechanisms and providing guidance to increase our department’s level of expertise on equity and inclusive teaching and mentoring, and to provide similar expertise to our trainees.

JEDI Resources

Race and Ethnicity

• Graduate Student Equity & Excellence (GSEE)
• Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA&D)
• UW Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center
• UW Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (UW NSBE)
• UW Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (UW SHPE)
• UW SACNAS Chapter
• w??b?altx? – Intellectual House
• Undocumented student resources

Gender

• Women’s Center
• UW Society of Women Engineers
• Women Engineers Rise (WE Rise)

LGBTQ

• UW Q Center
• Q-munity

Individuals with disabilities

• D Center
• Disability resources for Students
• Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology

International students

• UW International Student Services (ISS) office
• Undocumented student resources
• Career Center @ Engineering
• Counseling Center

INCLUSIVE ADMISSIONS OR HIRING

• Handbook of Best Practices for Faculty Searches
• Bhalla 2019

INCLUSIVE TEACHING

• Equal Access: Universal Design of Instruction | DO-IT
• UW Well-Being for Life and Learning Guidebook

UW INSTITUTIONAL MISSIONS, POLICIES, AND RESOURCES

• UW 2022-2026 Diversity Blueprint
• Diversity at the University of Washington
• Diversity council
• Diversity statistics & policies
• Office of Inclusive Excellence in COE
• Strategic planning in the College of Engineering
• Disability Services

Feedback & Reporting Mechanisms

It is our goal that all members of the BIOE community feel included and supported. We want to highlight the resources available to you if you would like to provide feedback to improve the program or resolve a situation, or would like support in an incident of bias. We have provided links to different methods of providing feedback or reporting, and some information to help you decide which suits your purpose.

See also

Diversity at the University of Washington

UW Equity Focus, the UW’s hub for stories highlighting diversity and equity