Trailblazing alum paves way for students’ success in STEM
Alumnus Leroy Long III has achieved many firsts. He’s the first Black person to earn promotion with tenure in engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach campus, and the first U.S. born Black man to earn tenure in any college on any Embry-Riddle campus.
The Dayton, Ohio native is also the first member of his family to earn an engineering degree or a doctorate, and the first to become an educator or a college professor.
But for Long, being the first isn’t as important as ensuring he’s not the last.
“All of it is an achievement to me, but mainly because I’m representing something much bigger than me,” he said. “There are many more people capable of doing this, if they just had the opportunity.”
Long has been a tireless mentor and advocate for those individuals, particularly those from marginalized or minoritized backgrounds. His goal to help more underrepresented students succeed in STEM has been shaped by his own life’s experiences.
His passion for engineering and mentorship began in middle school when his mother—a first-generation college student with a computer science background—and his science teacher encouraged him to join a STEM summer enrichment program at Wright State University. The program was founded by Dr. Clark Beck, one of the first Black men to earn an engineering degree from the University of Cincinnati. After graduating high school with a tuition-based scholarship from the program, Long enrolled at Wright State as a mechanical engineering major. After graduation, he came to The Ohio State University, first earning his master’s in mechanical engineering in 2011 and then a PhD in STEM education, with a focus on engineering education in 2015.
It was at Ohio State that Long discovered his passion for education as a graduate teaching associate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the First-Year Engineering Program.
“Working with the students, seeing the reaction they had to someone my age—which was very close to theirs at the time—my relatability, my enthusiasm, and my ability to translate difficult concepts, I thought, this might be the thing for me,” he said.
But it wasn’t until he started his PhD program and saw people like himself in a college classroom that Long truly realized what he could aspire to be.
“It was the first time I was exposed to Black male faculty members like Dr. Terrell Strayhorn and Dr. James Moore III, those who actively did research and were in the classroom,” he said. “The presence of those Black men along with previous Black male engineering administrators like Dr. Gregory Washington and Dr. Ruby Mawasha—that’s when I started to see myself being able to do it, too.”
Currently an associate professor of engineering fundamentals, Long’s research often focuses on the academic and social experiences of Black and Latinx groups as well as student-athletes in STEM fields. He credits his Christian faith with teaching him about compassionate servant leadership and views his work as his calling in life.
“Just to help someone else see what they're capable of, and to not be a person who is putting any roadblocks or barriers in their way, but just propelling them, giving them fuel and fire for that journey—that's what keeps me going, fulfills me and makes me really enjoy this type of work.”
When he made history in 2021 by earning tenure, he felt he had achieved a dream his ancestors could not.
“I started looking more into my ancestry. This was the first time I had ever done it formally and that's what really inspired and motivated me.” Long uncovered in his family’s lineage the wide array of skills that he himself possessed and had encountered from family members he knew—a grandfather who excelled in math and science, grandmothers who were organized and efficient, aunts with a love of reading and writing, uncles and cousins with artistic abilities, his mother’s background in computer science and sports, his father’s gift for public speaking and ministry, and others who valued education and community service.
“When I saw the injustices, the sacrifices and the lack of access, then it started to mean a lot to me,” said Long. “My ancestors and the people who helped me get tenure made me extremely joyful, but then there is some frustration that this is 2021, and this is just now happening.”
A true engineer with a solutions-based mindset, Long started We Need More, LLC to address the vital need for more women and people of color in STEM fields. In addition to merchandise from its new clothing line, We Need More offers educational research and evaluation, consultation and training, book and grant writing, as well as community service and outreach. Long uses his own experiences in STEM, the arts, and sports to bring students the resources they need for their unique purpose and path. He’s also working on starting a non-profit that provides community service and outreach for things like scholarships, business startup funds, food pantries, clothing and school supplies.
Even with his numerous successes and achievements, Long maintains it hasn’t all been positive. He recalls some of the explicit bigotry and racism he experienced during his time as a college student. He describes some of these experiences in an article he co-wrote in the Journal of Negro Education titled, “Brotherly Bond: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Analysis of Black Male Scholars.”
“I would imagine the individuals who are putting that energy out are not the ones who have had to receive it,” he said. “So that's why I go back to my motto of ‘lead with love, follow with justice.’ Treat me with humanity, care about my well-being, and make it so engineering can be fun and inclusive, not an environment where whoever comes out, they must have been the strongest or most resilient.”
With Long’s tireless devotion to STEM education and his students, he’s helping ensure he won’t be the last to reach this kind of success, and that others like him have the support they need to achieve their own dreams.
by Meggie Biss, College of Engineering Communications | biss.11@osu.edu
