Office of Diversity and Inclusion |

Student Voices

Reflections on the Freshman Coaching Program

Promise Adebayo-Ige (CBE’20)

“In my first year at Penn, the Office acted as a huge support system. It’s nice to have people in engineering that always check in on you and care about how you are doing. In addition to that, the Freshman Coaching Program was huge in helping me become accustomed to academics at Penn. I decided to participate in this program because I wanted help studying for my first round of midterms. I soon realized that the help I was getting here was better than any help I could get elsewhere. I gained a better understanding of the subjects I was learning and I also saw improvements in my test scores.”

Reflections on NSF-LSAMP Summer Research Program

Kemi Oladuja (BE’20)

“The Office has been a great support system to me. It’s great because it offered a tutoring service, as well as an opportunity to get started on undergraduate research. I’ve made a lot of friends in the Office and even got very involved in NSBE because of it. I participated in a summer research program offered by the Office because I have always loved research. Most of the things that I learned in the lab I had never learned before, which was a great experience. I am in the program because I want to expand the skills in and knowledge of my field of interest. This program has really helped me to figure out what I want to do with my degree and has even given me a view of what my post-graduate life may be like as I have experienced the job content of some people in my field.”

Reflections on the Office and the Penn Experience

Aspen Walker (CBE’16)

“The Office was everything for me. It was the hub of emotional and academic support. I became very close with the staff, and they made such an impact on my college experience. Graduation felt like much more of a reality with their support. If I had to do it again, I would certainly go to Penn because it made me who I am today. I don’t have any regrets. Some things were incredibly painful and hard to face, but in the end I made it through, had a job, and amazing friends and memories and that’s what really matters.”

Reflections on the Freshman Coaching Program

John Cortes, doctoral student, MEAM

“I am a Coach for the Freshman Coaching Program. It has been a great experience working with amazing students; it is very rewarding. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion gives me, as a graduate student, a place that I am 100 percent comfortable in and people I can talk to if needed who will better understand my problems and struggles.”

Diversity & Inclusion at SEAS

Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan

The Penn Compact 2022 affirms Inclusion as a means toward the essential ends of higher education: equalizing opportunity, educating leaders for all sectors of society, and enriching the experience of all members of the University community. Penn Engineering remains strongly committed to initiatives that support the University’s efforts to achieve an educational and employment environment that is diverse in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, interests, abilities and perspectives. We strive to attract a diverse community of students and faculty, to provide an accessible, rigorous engineering education, and to improve our local and global communities through engineering.

A Message to the Penn Engineering Community

We hope this message finds you safe and healthy. Together we are seeing and feeling the events occurring across our country in response to the effects of entrenched racism in the United States. The disturbingly systemic injustices that disproportionately affect Black people in our nation are indicative of a broader, insidious issue that contradicts the basic tenets upon which this nation was founded. As members of the Penn community, we stand together to affirm our commitment to our nation’s founding values and our University mission, which can only be achieved through mutual respect and collaboration.

Who We Are

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) holds at its core the commitment to celebrating and increasing the representation of underrepresented minorities in the student body, faculty, and staff of Penn Engineering. Through the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Penn Engineering continues its long history of leadership in the identification, recruitment, and retention of underrepresented minority students and faculty.

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