Geographically, CSULB is situated in a busy urban area with tremendous racial diversity. With a student population that reflects this diversity, CSULB is ranked the fifth most diverse university in the West by U.S. News and World Report. With a commitment toward diversifying the engineering profession, CSULB’s College of Engineering continues to reach out to secondary and community colleges that reflect a broad population of student learners. The number of students applying and enrolling for engineering, as well as those that graduate with an engineering degree, continue to represent an ethnic diversity that mirrors the landscape of Southern California. Figure 1 show the graduation rate of undergraduate students by ethnicity in the College of Engineering, while Figure 2 shows the ethnic distribution of undergraduate student enrollment; both graphs display the actual number of students adjacent to the percentage of students.
Figure 1: Graduation Trends by Ethnicity.
Figure 2: Graduation Rate by Ethnicity for AY 2010-2011.
In addition to its focus on increasing the representation of traditionally under-represented minority students in its programs, CSULB’s College of Engineering values the participation of women in the discipline. Currently, women represent less than 15% of CSULB’s engineering population (see Figure 3, below). The American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES, 2004) reported that only about 10% of the nation’s professional engineers and 20% of undergraduate engineering students are women. Research shows a great need for increasing self-efficacy among women students, in order to mitigate the potential isolation that women students might experience in a male-dominated field. CSULB’s College of Engineering is currently developing more aggressive strategies for increasing the participation of women students in its programs.
Figure 3: Graduation Trends by Gender.