News

2019-2020: SEAONC SE3 Year In Review

1/4/2021

SEAONC SE3’s 2019-2020 year, led by co-chairs Brenna Marcoux and Rachel Cohen, focused on a few main charges: diversity and inclusion, and mentorship. Following our diversity and inclusion launch event: Building an Inclusive Workplace for ALL in the 21st Century that took place in October, 2019 at AIA East Bay, there was a lot of interest from our committee and our SEAONC community in continuing programming around this topic. SEAONC SE3 views the topic of diversity and inclusion to be central to our mission. Mentorship has been a continued charge for our committee since we started. Each year we’ve hosted one to two speed mentorship events, and in 2018, we launched our Long-Term Mentorship program, which we continued last year.

While we were challenged by the Shelter-In-Place order in the Bay Area due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we adapted to provide virtual events and considered our programming to be crucial to the engagement of individuals in our industry, especially during the work-from-home period we find ourselves in. The protests and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd and many others at the hands of police this summer also refocused our committee’s efforts. We verbalized our commitments to racial justice and started a new subcommittee to carry them out.

Join our Racial Equity Book Club!

1/1/2021

SEAONC SE3 will hold a bi-monthly Racial Equity Book Club on the second Thursday of every other month, starting in January 2021. Discussions will be informal, no registration is required, and all you need to bring is yourself!

Our first book will be Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which we will discuss on Thursday, January 14, from 6:30pm - 7:30 pm.

Please see our Racial Equity Book Club page for more information.

FIRM LEADER ROUNDTABLE | Driving Innovation Through DEI Strategies

11/5/2020

SEAONC SE3 hosted a DEI leadership roundtable event on Thursday, October 29, focused on facilitating discussions among firm leaders in northern California about strategies to create a more inclusive workplace and address racial inequities in our industry. With the help of professional DEI consultant Viva Asmelash, we worked with participants to understand the importance of proactive DEI strategies at work and develop solutions and programs within their firms.

Thank you to Applied Technology Council, Arup, COWI, Degenkolb Engineers, Element Structural Engineers, Forell Elsesser Structural Engineers, FTF Engineering, Holmes Structures, KPFF, Liftech Consultants Inc., Maffei Structural Engineering, Martin/Martin, Pivot Structural Engineering, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Tipping Structural Engineers, and ZFA Structural Engineers for their participation in this event. A best practices brief sharing lessons learned with the larger SE community will be coming soon on our website.

Thank you to Stacy Bartoletti, S.E. for highlighting the event in his January 2021 Editorial in STRUCTURE Magazine "Making the Case for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion"

Survey of Current Civil Engineering Undergraduate Students

10/21/2020

The SEAONC SE3 Committee has developed a survey for current civil engineering undergraduate students with the hope of gaining an understanding of their experiences and what we as professionals can do to better support their career growth and development. We are interested in learning how these students first learned about engineering, if they have ever considered switching majors, whether they are considering pursuing a graduate degree, and if they plan to continue pursuing a career in engineering after graduation. The committee is also collecting demographic information (gender, race, Federal Pell Grant eligibility, and first generation status) to determine if there are any trends surrounding the engagement and retention of students of color that we can share with the professional community at large.

With this survey, we hope to answer the following questions:

Are students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) more likely to learn about engineering from outreach programs versus learning about engineering from parents or other family members?
Are students who identify as BIPOC more likely to consider switching majors? Why?
Are students that identify as BIPOC less likely to consider pursuing a graduate degree? Why?
Are students who identify as BIPOC less likely to consider pursuing a career in engineering after graduation? Why?
Are there similar trends for students who identify as low-income (Pell Grant eligible) and/or first generation?
Are students that identify as BIPOC more likely to also identify as low-income and/or first generation?

Link to survey: bit.ly/3dKmaSe

Please share this link with your student connections and encourage them to participate in the survey. Thank you in advance for your assistance! We look forward to sharing the findings from this survey with the A/E/C Community!!

Racial Equity Task Group

7/10/2020

To carry out SEAONC SE3’s pledges related to racial justice outlined in our recent statement, we formed an expanded Racial Equity Task Group (formerly the Diversity & Inclusion Task Group) who will continue meeting regularly over the course of this year to plan events and engage in ongoing research projects. Currently, we are compiling research relating to Black representation in structural engineering at the university and industry levels, gathering contacts to make connections with university groups serving underrepresented racial minorities in engineering, and discussing events such as the DEI leadership roundtable and programming specifically for BIPOC engineers. Our CE Education Experience Survey has launched. Please forward to any current undergraduate civil engineering students you know. A big thank you to SEAONC Racial Equity Co-Lead Priscilla Nguyen for her work on this survey Please reach out to us if you are interested in getting involved.

Contributors:
Priscilla Nguyen, Hayley Proctor, Tiffany Hwang, Curtis Siegfried, Kaat Ceder, Brenna Marcoux, Rachel Cohen, Jen Ton, Jennifer Alviso, Melissa Patel, Emily Guglielmo, Lorena Arce, Natalie Tse

SE3's Commitment to Racial Justice

6/13/2020

On June 12th, SEAONC SE3 sent an email to its distribution list to confirm its continued commitment to stand and fight in solidarity with the Black community and the Black Lives Matter Movement. In this message, the committee shared its pledge to take specific actions in the 2020-2021 SEAONC year related to research, organized programming for local universities, roundtable discussion with firm leaders and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultants, and a commitment to give Black members of our profession a platform at SE3 events.

This pledge followed with a "Call-to-Action" to all firms and individuals to contribute to creating a more equitable structural engineering industry.

Each one of us has power—some more than others (firm leaders, committee leaders, community leaders). Each one of us has a voice—some louder or more listened to than others. In this time, reflect on spaces where you have power or privilege. Educate yourselves, speak up, donate, self-reflect, recommit, and repeat. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and SE3 will be here for you to help along the way.

The committee has recommended specific action items for firms and individuals, and made them available to the community on this website. To read the full statement and to download some resources on this topic, please visit this page of our website.

2020 SEAONC SE3 Mentorship Program!!

5/23/2020

SEAONC SE3 is currently launching its second year of the SE3 long-term mentorship program. We invite all SF Bay Area structural engineers to participate in this program.

The 2020 SE3 LT Mentorship Program
This year, the committee will be forming "mentoring groups" consisting of four to six people, varying in years of professional experience (entry-level, mid-level, and seasoned professionals).

For our program, groups will meet roughly once every other month. Meetings will of course be done virtually (until the Bay Area Counties remove or reduce restrictions due to COVID and it's deemed safe to meet in small groups).

What's great about this set-up is that everyone can benefit, no matter how many years they've been working in the profession:

Entry-level engineers have an obvious benefit of making new professional connections, gaining insights from the more experienced engineers in the group.
Mid-level engineers can both give and receive career advice, share stories and gain perspectives, rewarding them with valuable leadership and management tools.
Seasoned professionals can give back to the community and gain insights on what younger engineers are struggling with during this time.

The matching process virtually, so mentoring groups can form over the next month.

If you're interested in joining, please go to this link and complete an application.
Please forward this along to any colleagues at your firm who you think would be interested and can benefit from this program!!

Thank you to committee members Alan Puah, Steve Earl, Sara Rahme, and current co-chairs Rachel Cohen, and Brenna Marcoux for all their hard work setting up this new program for our local community.

2020 NCSEA SE3 Survey is LIVE!!

5/18/2020

The NCSEA SE3 Committee is currently administering its third nationwide survey of structural engineers across the profession.

We invite all structural engineers in the United States to join the conversation!
Please take 10-15 minutes to submit a response to this year's survey. Every opinion is important to us.

Link to the 2020 Survey

The core mission of the SE3 Committee is to attract and retain the best and brightest into our profession; and to ensure all structural engineers have a clear pathway to success. The SE3 survey is an ongoing effort to identify trends, understand the underlying factors, and initiate industry-wide conversations.

EVERY structural engineer is invited to participate regardless of race, gender, age or job title. The SE3 mission applies to every structural engineer.

For more info, please visit the NCSEA SE3 Committee Site.

SAVE THE DATE: A/E/C ROUNDTABLE: Inclusive Practices in Recruiting and Management | February 25, 2020

1/28/2020

The SEAONC SE3 Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee is excited announce our upcoming roundtable discussion at AIA in San Francisco on February 25, 2020.

Date | Time: February 25, 2020 | 5:45 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: AIA San Francisco, 130 Sutter St #600, San Francisco, CA 94104
Description: This roundtable discussion will focus on recruitment and management strategies that help attract and support a diverse staff. The panel will consist of firm leaders, HR/recruiting managers, and professionals from structural engineering, architecture, and general contracting firms, who will share their experiences implementing strategies or programs to diversify their staff and improve their workplace culture and retention metrics.

Panelists:

Lori Burbridge, Associate Principal, Business Manager | Buehler & Buehler
Denny Kwan, Principal, Residential Studio Lead | Holmes Structures
Kelli Quinn, Project Executive | Rudolph & Sletten
Gabrielle Bullock, Director of Global Diversity | Perkins & Will

Moderator:

Saskia Dennis-Van Dijl, Principal Consultant | Cameron MacAllister Group

For more information on the registration & panelists: Visit our event page.
Register for the event on the SEAONC Event Page.
Event Coordination Team:
Brenna, Rachel, Maito, Hayley and Tiffany

NCSEA SE3 YEAR IN REVIEW

1/2/2020

The National (NCSEA) SE3 committee has achieved quite a bit over the past year. The committee has increased collaboration across multiple SEA member organizations and other AEC organizations, completed over 15 presentations around the US and abroad, and hosted two very successful symposia, with over $40K in corporate sponsorships between the two. Analysis of the 2018 survey data continued, with special efforts in reporting geographic trends, flexibility and childcare, and wage gap at Principal level. In a huge collaborative effort, the 2018 Survey report was published, and can be viewed here.

Moving forward into 2020, in addition to the 2020 NCSEA SE3 survey (development, beta testing, and distribution), we are excited to be transitioning to what we are calling a “CALL TO ACTION”, to encourage all individuals in this profession to move beyond the data by starting conversations and effecting change in their respective organizations. What is your “reimagined workplace” and what do you plan to do to enhance your career, and influence positive changes in your immediate work environment?
See the newly published national SE3 committee website for more information on the committee, events, and publications.