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Penn Engineering Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dedicates New Suite to Foundational Figures

Forty years ago, Penn Engineering established the Office of Minority Programs, centralizing the schools growing efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse and representative body of students and faculty members.

Now known as the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), this branch of Penn Engineering is redoubling its commitment to this mission. As part of the $10 million in DEI investments laid out in the schools strategic plan, Penn Engineering has prioritized physical spaces where students can come for support, collaboration and community.

Last week, ODEI cut the ribbon on its new suite in the Towne Building, featuring a conference room and study space dedicated to two of its foundational figures: Cora Ingrum, ODEIs former director, and Donna Hampton, the offices longtime administrative assistant.

The Donna Hampton Study Space features a modern, comfortable architecture intended to encourage informal student gatherings and group work. Surrounding the study space is a suite of offices for ODEI staff and the Cora Ingrum Conference Room, which can be connected to the study space to accommodate larger gatherings.

The ribbon cutting was preceded by a gathering of faculty, staff, students and alumni, celebrating the honorees and the four decades of progress they inspired.

There, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion C.J. Taylor, Raymond S. Markowitz Presidents Distinguished Professor in Computer and Information Science, and ODEI director Laura Stubbs provided a retrospective of the schools DEI efforts, many of which Ms. Ingrum established in the decade preceding her appointment as director of the Office of Minority Programs.

Alumni also sent in video messages, showing how much Ms. Ingrum and Dr. Hamptons office mattered when they were feeling isolated or discouraged by the added pressures of being an underrepresented minority student.

A virtual tour of the new ODEI suite can be found at https://diversity.seas.upenn.edu/virtual-tour/.

Cora Ingrum was the director of multicultural programs in Penns School of Engineering and Applied Science. She had worked there for over 55 years, starting out as a department secretary in 1960, fresh out of high school in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, near Atlantic City. When I came to Penn, it was not open in the way you think, she once said. Students would come in, but there were so many barriers for African-American students. You cant do this. You cant do that. You wont make it. Why are you here? Why are you in my class? People would actually say that to students.

For 21 years, Ms. Ingrum served as the co-investigator and director of a National Science Foundation LAMP grant designed to increase underrepresented minority candidates for bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines at Penn.

To read more, visit https://thepenngazette.com/cora-ingrums-legacy/.

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Penn Engineering Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dedicates New Suite to Foundational Figures - UPENN Almanac