2024 FAUW Equity Award winner
Launched in January 2021, the IBET PhD Project has already produced 56 IBET Momentum Fellows across Canada. Founding Director Tizazu (Tiz) Mekonnen, FAUW’s 2024 Equity Fellow, sees the potential for so much more.
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement that took off after the death of George Floyd in 2020, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo started looking at diversity in Engineering faculties in Ontario and across Canada. At the time, Tiz Mekonnen was the only Black faculty member out of about 350 professors within University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering, and one of less than 15 Indigenous and Black engineering faculty in all of Ontario. While there is an increasing push to encourage and support Black and Indigenous students in pursuing STEM fields in higher education, these students aren’t seeing their identities or lived experiences reflected in their instructors.
Instead of tackling this alone, the Waterloo Engineering saw a need across the country and began by reaching out to other engineering school in Ontario. Beginning with University of Ottawa, Queens University, University of Toronto, McMaster University, University of Western Ontario and University of Waterloo, work began on building a program and platform spearheaded by Tiz Mekonnen. Focusing on the PhD level, the program is not limited to academia, recognizing there is also a paucity of Black and Indigenous at the PhD level in industry and government as well.
Tiz Mekonnen
Tizazu (Tiz) Mekonnen
There is a huge lack of diversity, especially when it comes to Indigenous and Black academics. We have to do something about it.
About the IBET PhD Project
The IBET PhD Project has three components:
A prestigious fellowship worth $30,000/year for 4 years, allowing students to focus on their studies instead of worrying about raising money.
A mentorship program that provides support and examples of what life might look like during and after their PhD, including preparing for the next step in their career. Fellows are matched with a new mentor every year throughout the 4-year program, giving them access to people with experience and perspectives from academia and industry, here in Canada and abroad.
A network for Black and Indigenous PhD candidates to build a community of peers, including an annual conference, helping to form connections that can be carried throughout their careers.
Once the program launched, universities across Canada were invited to participate, growing to the current consortium of 18 universities. Mekonnen said institutions were very eager to join, as they all saw the need, the only challenge was financial, with some schools reaching out to industry partners to successfully secure funding for their fellowships.
IBET PhD Project participants
How can you support the Project and Black and Indigenous students?
Despite the success of the IBET PhD Project, Tiz acknowledges that the problem remains huge, and the goal is to scale up the program to increase capacity. He also hopes to see the number of Indigenous students increase, as they only make up about 20% of the fellows who have gone through the program. Mekonnen has a vision of expanding the project to follow graduates into their post-doctoral studies and early career faculty positions. The project has also highlighted for him the value of mentorship for all PhD students.
Tiz notes that the project is only reaching students who have already successfully completed undergraduate and graduate degree programs. To truly expand the impact within post-secondary, he sees a need to provide similar supports at the masters and undergraduate levels to grow the pipeline feeding PhD programs.
Interested in supporting racialized people throughout university? Tiz says this starts with understanding the systemic barriers they face. Many Black and Indigenous scholars are the first from their family or even community to attend university or pursue graduate studies. He says professors should try to understand this and do their best to bridge any gaps in understanding and awareness of academia. “Also, offering their time to mentor Black and Indigenous students. There are various programs through the University that provide mentorship opportunities, so participating in those would be very helpful.” Tiz also encourages faculty to actively recruit Black and Indigenous students into graduate programs, and the funding for those recruits that is available through the IBET PhD Project and the Tri-Agency Council.
Learn more about the IBET PhD Project and FAUW’s Equity and Inclusivity Award.