Ashley Taylor: Creating a more accessible path to Engineering Education

The following story was written in April 2019 by Matthew Madhavan in ENGL 4824: Science Writing as part of a collaboration between the English department and the Center for Communicating Science.

For many people across the nation, pursuing a degree in higher education is viewed as a reliable way of securing a career, a home, and a life beyond what they used to have. Over the years, a college degree has become a cultural icon of how intelligence and hard work can provide the means to a better future.

Unless you’re not able to attend college in the first place.

Ashley Taylor, a Virginia Tech Ph.D. candidate in Engineering Education advised by Dr. Walter Lee, aims to learn more about what factors enable people to pursue higher education in spite of significant challenges. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech in 2014 and completing her master of science in mechanical engineering and master of public health in 2016, she decided to pursue a doctoral degree in engineering education.

Taylor also directs the Pathways for Future Engineers program in Virginia Tech’s Center for Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED). CEED is a 27-year-old center designed to support and enhance the education of engineering for students, particularly those belonging to underrepresented groups.

This photo shows 16 young women or teens posed in a group in front of a projected slide that reads, "What did we learn about engineering? Engineers help people, engineers work in teams, engineers use math and science, Engineers solve problems," and the rest of the slide is obscured by the people. — Taylor collaborates with the American Association for University Women Wytheville Chapter to provide hands-on engineering experiences for young women from Appalachia and discuss pathways to an engineering degree.

While Taylor’s work in CEED focuses on the practical and logistical concerns of assisting people in pursuing engineering-related degrees at Virginia Tech, her own research efforts focus on a much larger picture: the people who are not statistically likely to pursue a college-level education because of socioeconomic problems.

“For my dissertation research I’m systematically trying to understand and hear students’ voices, particularly the voices that aren’t always heard,” said Taylor. Her work involves researching factors such as how people’s surroundings as they grow up affect their chances of pursuing a higher education. Taylor’s work is partially inspired by economics research, which suggests that people from certain zip codes or income brackets are more likely to be unable to attend college due to a myriad of problems, most notably financial ones.

“We know that folks from high-income backgrounds are much more likely to go to college and study engineering than folks from low-income backgrounds,” Taylor explains. “My work is in trying to understand the students who, against all the odds, have managed to pursue and persist in engineering.”

Taylor’s research seeks to understand what specific factors support students from underserved backgrounds in the pursuit of a college education. Her work is centered around improving people’s access to college and reducing the barriers to entry for many people across the nation. However, the effort is not without its difficulties.

As people have often considered college education to be a means of upward mobility and securing a better standard of living, the fact that people of certain social classes and demographics are not able to pursue higher education presents a growing problem in modern society.

“What the worldwide dataset shows is that we have extremely rapidly growing income inequality. What this ultimately means is that where you’re born, and the family that you’re born into, really matters for the opportunities that are available to you,” Taylor explains. “For the first time in U.S. history, intergenerational mobility, how likely a child is to make more money than their parents, is going down in many places.”

This statistic is in no small part thanks to rising prices of tuition, but the problem is not quite so simple, Taylor says. The problem of people not being able to attend college is a systemic one, brought on by variables that range from immense wealth inequalities to social and political aspects that are difficult to circumvent.

Despite all the challenges, Ashley Taylor remains unwavering in her dedication to her research and the people she works with.

“[In the future] I see myself working to increase access and equity in engineering education," she says."My heart is most full when I’m working directly with students. My commitment is to remain completely connected to students and make sure that their voices are heard in the process.”

When asked about what made her consider pursuing her research in Engineering Education, Taylor answered that the students she works with provide her with drive and focus as she continues both her research and various projects assisting potential engineering students. Considering how many people have secured an engineering education despite all the odds, thanks to her and people in related programs, it’s not hard to understand why she has named them as a source of inspiration.