Sustained Inequity: Examining How Organizational Mechanisms Shape Black Women Engineering Faculty’s Participation in Entrepreneurial Education Programs

Entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) have advanced innovation by providing faculty with avenues for transforming their research into marketable products. However, EEPs have struggled to engage Black women engineering faculty, which stifles innovation and their upward mobility. Additionally, few studies examine EEP participation with a critical lens, creating a lack of research-based understanding of how structural and organizational processes within higher education ecosystems contribute to the lack of diversity in EEPs. Therefore, this study engages in a critical qualitative inquiry to examine the following question: How do Black women engineering faculty describe how organizational factors inside of science, technology, and engineering higher education ecosystems contribute to their participation in EEPs? We conducted six in-depth semistructured interviews with Black women engineering faculty. We find evidence that suggests Black women engineering faculty’s low participation in EEPs is connected to inequitable organizational mechanisms inside of engineering departments and EEPs. Also, we find that EEPs mitigate barriers for Black women engineering faculty by engaging in acts of epistemic justice. We describe how EEPs and engineering departments can create justice-oriented mechanisms like reevaluating tenure requirements to enhance the experiences of Black women engineering faculty. Overall, this study contributes to existing literature on ways to increase access and broaden participation for Black women engineering faculty in EEPs.