Committing to Anti-Racism and Inclusion in the Brooke Owens Fellowship

By alumnae of the Brooke Owens Fellowship

We write this message reflecting on our own experiences as Fellows, and in no way mean to represent the Brooke Owens Fellows or the program as a whole. We commit to instilling anti-racist behavior in our community and promoting action within and outside the group.

The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—only the most recent and unnecessary deaths on a list of too many—exemplify the long history of racism and injustice in America against Black people. Since 14-year old Emmitt Till’s murder in 1955 catalyzed a fervor in the emerging Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the deaths and brutalization of women, men, and LGBTQIA+ People of Color have sparked a long-overdue re-evaluation and action across organizations, including the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) field. Some organizations are now attempting to refocus their approach to diversity and inclusion, with a renewed interest in holding themselves accountable for the ways in which they—often unintentionally—facilitate discriminatory workplaces. The Brooke Owens Fellowship recognizes that concrete action is necessary following statements of support. Hence, we as fellows, alums, and leaders, are working within our own program to commit to ensuring diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism.

Ignited by the memory and legacy of a dear friend to the Founders and an aerospace pioneer, the Brooke Owens Fellowship was founded with the goal of embracing equity and equality and eliminating injustice and discrimination. Each Brookie is awarded the fellowship due to our sincerity, diligence, and embodiment of ‘Brookieness’ which pushes us to break down barriers, overcome challenges, reflect on how we can change society for the better, and lead by example. For many of us, the Brooke Owens Fellowship has been instrumental in launching our careers in the aerospace industry by enabling us to meet our role models, providing individualized career advice and a network of support, and instilling a newfound confidence and sense-of-self for when we return to full-time roles or school—the power of representation to speak volumes. 

As a program that actively breaks down gender barriers, bringing over 150 women and gender minorities together, we have made huge strides in creating an inclusive community. In an internal evaluation of BOF’s diversity and recruitment, People of Color (PoCs) are significantly more represented from all four Brookie classes and Brookie applicant recruiting than they are represented in the Aerospace & Defense Industry. Overall, the proportion of PoCs to white people in the BOF applicant pool is 29% greater than the current Aerospace & Defense industry racial and ethnic makeup, highlighting the interest of PoCs in pursuing aerospace careers and how programs like BOF encourage PoCs to enter the industry. Looking at the accepted Brookies from the classes of 2017-2020, Hispanic and Latinx representation comprises 15% of the Brookie classes of 2017-2020, compared to 5% of the Aerospace & Defense Industry. Asian people represent 18% in the Brookie classes, in comparison to 6% in the industry. 

But, there is much more room for improvement to recruit Black and Indigenous/other PoCs and women and gender minorities who have historically been excluded based on other statuses. Black Brookies make up 6% of all Brookie classes, a small difference in comparison to the industry proportion of 4%, and other Indigenous/Other POCs make up 3% of all Brookies in comparison to 1% in the industry. We know there are many brilliant BIPOC young women and gender minorities who want to enter the aerospace industry given that they make up ~10% of applicants, and improved outreach strategies could reveal an even greater number of inspiring BIPOC students.

Additionally, part of the mission of the program is to open new doors that Brookies could not access before, so the application process looked at biases that could suggest whether we are admitting underrepresented backgrounds, or admitting those who have possibly already had many aerospace resources accessible to them. Between applicants and accepted Fellows, the process has been biased towards accepting those that come from higher-income family backgrounds.

BOF is not exempt from the same racial discriminations that plague the rest of the United States. Based on these statistics, the criteria and experiences by which we define success and merit need to evolve. We need to make sure that BOF is accessible to people who have been kept out of the aerospace industry, to those who have been kept from their desire to pursue STEAM, and to those who do not even know they have the potential to start a career in aerospace. As Brookies, we have the power to make the changes we want to see in the program.

We are fortunate to be in a program that is young and flexible to our ideas. Since the end of the first summer, the Brookies have been involved in every part of the program and have been encouraged to speak out and take action. We reach out to schools and institutions, participate in the Selection Committee, coordinate the annual Summit, manage social media and the website, and mentor the incoming class of Brookies. Every year, we help the program grow, learning alongside the Founders on how to increase diversity in the industry in all forms, and then how to help the Brookies who step through the open door feel like they belong. 

These are the actions that the Brooke Owens Fellowship has taken over the past year to improve diversity in the program: 

  1. Selected two alumnae from the previous Brookie class to serve as Organizational Outreach Coordinators, tasked with reaching out to organizations whose members could potentially apply, and with a specific focus on minority-serving institutions. (Examples include: the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers, and many others—not limited to the field of engineering).

  2. Selected two alumnae from the previous class to serve as Social Media Coordinators, tasked in large part with recruiting applicants for the program.

  3. Highlighted alumnae stories featuring issues of diversity and inclusion and non-traditional career paths in newsletters and on social media. Create a platform for diverse Brookie voices and their achievements on the blog. Here are a few examples:

    1. 2019 Brookie Sarah is featured in a post about her BOF internship

    2. 2019 Brookie Myk is quoted for Women’s History Month

    3. 2019 Brookie Amy writes about representation for Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month

  4. Offered recruitment messages in multiple languages.

More must be done, however, to be actively anti-racist. This year, and for all the coming years, the Brooke Owens Fellowship commits to tackling racial and ethnic bias in the following ways: 

  1. Add more diverse leaders to the Executive Leadership team, expanding the set of perspectives that run the Fellowship. One of these leaders is Diana Trujillo, a full-time engineer, Latinx, immigrant, and ESL speaker. Two more are Brookie alumnae themselves who were nominated and selected by the Brookies and Brookie alumnae to represent the program. Caroline Juang and Kayla Watson will bring perspectives from different Brookie classes (2017 and 2018) and diverse academic, professional, and personal backgrounds. 

  2. Create an explicit allyship initiative within the Fellowship, dedicated to uplifting voices of color and promoting inclusion through required readings and discussions for alumnae and future Brookies alike.

  3. Create a dedicated feedback channel for alumnae to give constructive criticism on the Fellowship application process.

  4. Create a working group specifically to acknowledge Black women and improve the overall community of the fellowship by adding a more enriched, inclusive experience, led by Executive Team member and Brookie Kayla Watson.

  5. Continue to use the BOF internal evaluation of diversity to modify the 2021 application materials to decrease known biases and give all applicants a fairer opportunity.

As the Brookies of the Brooke Owens Fellowship, we affirm to be anti-racist, to not fall into the same patterns of discrimination and injustice of the United States, to listen, to learn, to evolve, and take action; and to build BOF and ourselves to support Black people and other underrepresented minorities in STEM or whatever path they themselves choose to conquer!

Here are additional resources to read and support #BlackLivesMatter:

Signed,

Caroline Juang (Class of 2017)

Morgan Irons (Class of 2017)

Julia Di (Class of 2018)

Rikhi Roy (Class of 2019)

Luc Riesbeck (Class of 2018)

Sasha Warren (Class of 2017)

Beimnet Shitaye (Class of 2020)

Piper Sigrest (Class of 2017)

ArticlesCaroline Jabout the Fellowship, diversity, representation