AboutChBE Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
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About Us
The ARDEI committee is composed of undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and staff stakeholders who work together to bring about positive change. The committee is currently co-chaired by a faculty member and a graduate student. Bi-weekly meetings provide an opportunity for thoughtful discussions and progress updates on our initiatives, while subgroups move forward on initiatives separately. We welcome anyone in our community to join our committee by emailing us your interest at ChBE_ARDEI@northwestern.edu.
Current Initiatives
Department Climate
We launched a Department Climate Survey initiative to seek the perspectives of our community on a range of ARDEI topics, and to understand how we may best prioritize our initiatives. The results of this climate survey are being analyzed with the help of external consultants on an ongoing basis to prioritize and expand our initiatives and guide community conversations around key topics.
Department Communications
We are actively working to provide support, resources, and transparency to our community through website updates, community conversations, email communications, and other approaches to ensure that our community can stay actively engaged and informed in this area.
Annual Seminar Series
We recently launched an annual Departmental Seminar Series entitled ‘Contextualizing Engineering’. By sponsoring world class leaders and researchers to speak to our department, we aim to expose STEM researchers to research and efforts focusing on environmental justice, research justice, anti-racism, intersectionality, and a range of other important topics.
Undergraduate Resources and Course Development
We are actively working to introduce ARDEI topics into our undergraduate courses. We envision multiple routes to achieving this goal, including having topical discussions in courses and developing course content that draws explicit connections between students’ technical work as engineers and social responsibility as advocates of anti-racism. Our current effort focuses on developing problem sets that allow students to explore, for example, how certain chemical engineering processes impact the communities in which they are deployed.
Graduate Course Development
Graduate students in our department begin their studies with a Professional Development topic series. Our goal with this initiative is to encourage conversation, reflection, and action in ARDEI as it relates to STEM. Students will learn basic definitions, explain how concepts manifest in technology, careers, and funding, and ultimately develop an action plan to guide their degree and career.
Quarterly Updates
Each quarter we provide updates on our initiatives to keep our community informed. Please follow the links below to see past updates.
Resources
Student Groups
The Department and the McCormick School of Engineering has several student groups that are dedicated to ARDEI topics. Please see the list below to find out more about groups that may be of interest.
- McCormick Student Advisory Board
- McCormick Graduate Leadership Council
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
- National Society of Black Engineers
- Society of Women Engineers
- Graduate Society of Women in Engineers
- Women in Science and Engineering Research
- Association of Undergraduate Women in Science
- Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) at Northwestern
- Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE)
- Out in STEM (Graduate Chapter)
- Science Policy Outreach Taskforce (SPOT)
In addition, we recognize student organizations doing ARDEI work are not just within the scope of McCormick, and that these groups may cater to a wider variety of interests, backgrounds, and identities than those within the school. For that reason, we would also like to highlight the following groups:
Social Justice, Advocacy, & Organizing
- Advancement for the Undocumented
- Associated Student Government (ASG)
- Student Counselors for Social Justice
- Campus Inclusion and Community
- Center for Civic Engagement
- College Feminists
- Diversity in the Biological Sciences
- Masculinity, Allyship, Reflection, Solidarity (MARS)
- Northwestern University Community for Human Rights
- Northwestern University Fossil Free
- NU Community Not Cops (NUNC)
- Peer Inclusion Educators
- Planned Parenthood Generation Action
- Social Justice Education
- Students for Justice in Palestine
- Sustained Dialogue
- Undergraduate Prison Education Partnership
- Wildcats for Israel
Politics
- College Democrats
- College Republicans
- Indivisible
- Northwestern Political Union
- Parliamentary Debate Union
- Young Democratic Socialists of America
Health & Wellness
- Active Minds
- Center for Awareness, Response, and Education (CARE)
- Gender and Sexuality Resource Center
- MENtal Health
- Peer Health Exchange
- Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators
- Wildcats Advancing Total Campus Health (WATCH)
- WildCHAT
Affinity & Community
- African Students Association
- Alianza - Latinx Student Alliance
- Alliance of African Scholars
- Alliance of Chicago Minority Students
- Association of Latino Professionals for America
- Black Mentorship Program
- CaribNation
- Chinese Internal Student Association
- Chinese Student & Scholar Association
- Chinese Student Association
- For Members Only - Black Student Alliance
- For Us, By Us - Black Female-Identifying and Nonbinary Alliance
- Indonesian Students’ Association
- International Student Association
- Iranian Student Association
- Italian Association
- Japanese American Student Association
- Kaibigan: Philippine-American Student Association
- Korean American Student Association
- Koreans Association at Northwestern
- Latinx Student Alliance
- Minority Association of Pre-Med Students
- MIXED Student Association
- Multicultural Greek Council
- Muslim Cultural Student Association
- Northwestern Hawaii Club
- Northwestern Quest Scholars
- Northwestern University Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance
- Northwestern University Veterans Association
- Office of Student Enrichment Services
- Polish American Student Alliance
- Rainbow Alliance
- South Asian Student Alliance
- Thai Student Association
- The Collective - Black Men
- The Women’s Network
- Transfer Student Organization
- Vietnamese Student Association
Spiritual Life
- Asian American Intervarsity Christian Fellowship
- Canterbury Northwestern
- Chi Alpha Campus Ministries
- Christian Science Organization NU
- Christians on Campus
- Cornerstone Anglican Church
- Cru
- Destino
- Fiedler Hillel Student Life
- House on the Rock Christain Fellowship
- Impact
- Interfaith Initiative
- InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
- Lutheran Campus Ministry
- Makenew
- MEOR
- Northwestern Chinese Christian Student Fellowship
- Northwestern University Catholic Association
- OM at Northwestern
- Reformed University Fellowship
- Religious and Spiritual Life
- SGI Buddhists for Peace
- Shia Muslim Association
- Grace Fellowship
- University Bible Fellowship
- University Christian Ministry
- Young Life
Graduate Students
- Black Graduate Student Association
- Chicago Graduate Student Association
- Graduate Christian Fellowship
- Graduate International Student Association
- Graduate Leadership Advocacy Council
- Graduate Student Association
- Graduate Student Association for Latino and Spanish Activities
- Graduate Women Across Northwestern
- Indian Graduate Students and Scholars Association
- NU Graduates Mentoring Undergraduates
- Queer Pride Graduate Students Association
- TGS Cross-Cultural
Contact Us
Do you have additional ideas for this website, ideas for other ARDEI initiatives, a community conversation idea, a desire to join the committee, or another important topic to bring to our attention? We want to hear from you! Please email suggestions or inquiries to ChBE_ARDEI@northwestern.edu. Emails are read and responded to by the ARDEI committee.