Elizabeth A. Eschenbach

The future of engineering education

Thirteen engineering educators and researchers were each asked to choose a particular aspect of engineerings future to address. Each of the authors has contributed a short piece that has been edited into a discussion of the future as we collectively see it. Topics include the stimulating change, the changing university, teaching, learning, research, outcome assessment and technology as well as a look back at predictions for 2000.

Feminism and engineering

Can you be feminist and an engineer? This paper explores this question and aims to show some of the breadth of experience and meanings involved in constructing this combination. Specifically, for this study we used ourselves as the sample population. We are four women engineers who identify themselves as feminists, with Ph.D. degrees and interests in education. Our backgrounds include electrical, environmental, and industrial engineering and teaching experiences at large and small private and public universities. Our experiences with formal courses in pedagogy and feminism range from none to quite extensive. For this study, we each wrote an essay in response to questions of how we combine feminism and engineering as well as our opinions on feminist pedagogy. We used these essays as data for a qualitative analysis from which several common themes and differences emerged. In this paper, we briefly describe ourselves and present our definitions of feminism. We provide illustrations of our most common themes from our reflections. The two most frequent themes were those of social justice for engineering including making the engineering community more welcoming to a diverse group of people and wanting to enhance student learning. Consideration of feminist pedagogy led to a third theme of critiquing the engineering process itself including who and what is studied. Finally, we present our variety of views on our motivation for investigating feminist pedagogy and its use in engineering education

Interactive session - feminist frontiers

This interactive session explores the feminist frontiers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The goals of the session are: 1) to assist participants in developing their definitions of feminism; 2) to assist participants in developing their definitions of feminist pedagogy; and 3) to encourage participants to begin to explore specific ways to implement feminist pedagogy in their classrooms and ways it may be useful to engineering education. The session is of interest to faculty who are interested in new pedagogical methods and/or increasing diversity in their classrooms. Together we will consider our current understanding of feminism and review scholarly distinctions between types of feminism. Then we will explore the tenets of feminist pedagogy and how it is implemented in the classroom. Finally, we discuss how engineering education can benefit from feminist pedagogy. Examples and resources was shared with participants to make the ideas more concrete.

Workshop Classroom Border Crossings: Incorporating Feminist and Liberative Pedagogies in your CSET Classroom

Effective teachers use a variety of pedagogies to engage a wider diversity of students, providing a more equitable classroom. In this workshop, participants will explore the use of feminist and liberative pedagogies in CSET classrooms. These pedagogies are founded on the ideals of social justice and democracy. The workshop will include discussions of classroom management strategies, critiques and redesign of the engineering process, and assessment and evaluation of student learning. Participants will leave the workshop with a list of concrete ideas for implementing feminist and liberative pedagogies and an annotated bibliography of helpful references. This workshop continues the collaborative work of these authors, presented in a 2004 Special Session and a 2005 Paper Session at FIE conferences

WWW page design: projects for introduction to design for environmental engineers

All Humboldt State University Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) students are required to take ENGR 111: Introduction to Design. In the Spring and Fall semesters of 1995, ENGR 111 students were assigned World Wide Web page design projects. In the Spring of 1995, 45 students designed WWW pages describing the ERE Department. In addition, each of the 11 design teams worked closely with an ERE faculty member and developed a home page for that faculty member. The Fall 1995 ENGR 111 class completed two design projects. 20 students designed WWW pages describing the Schatz Energy Research Center, which focuses on hydrogen fuel cell research. The second half of the class (25 students) designed web pages describing the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, which is the first constructed wetland in the nation to be used for waste water treatment. This paper describes ENGR 111, its WWW page design projects and various student and departmental benefits of those projects.

FIE 2017: Reviewing the past, predicting the future

At FIE 2002, 13 engineering educators assembled to address a variety of topics and predict the “Future of Engineering Education.” Larry Shuman organized and moderated the session [1]. Topics included the changing demographics and economics of the country, technological advances, the engineering pipeline, the state of the University and forces driving change, engineering as a liberal art, the accreditation process and faculty reward system, the role of technology in delivering engineering education, educating for higher levels of performance, research in engineering education, research applications, and outcomes assessment. This panel includes five of the original authors and some new contributors who are active in FIE. We will examine the predictions made in 2002, and ask where we were right, where we were wrong, what has come to pass, what is still in progress, and what concerns have faded from view. Many of the issues previously discussed are still hot topics 15 years later.

Special session — "Stereotype threat" and my students: What can I do about it?

Stereotype threat occurs when one is at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about a social group that one belongs to. In the academic setting, research has shown that stereotype threat contributes to the achievement gap noted in underrepresented students in engineering classrooms. Participants in this FIE special session define and discuss stereotype threat, explore interventions that research has found to successfully reduce stereotype threat, and identify one strategy to try in the classroom. Key resources are identified including research literature, websites and videos, and recommendations for intervention strategies. In addition to the literature, participants will have access to strategies developed by other participants that can be used by instructors to mitigate stereotype threats.

Special session: Race and the idea of privilege in the engineering classroom

White privilege is an important concept when considering issues such as social justice, the internal “culture” of engineering education and systematic change in engineering education. However, it is not well understood by most engineering educators. This Special Session will help participants explore the idea of White Privilege within the context of engineering education. Through an interactive format, participants will learn some theory and develop some ideas for addressing White Privilege in engineering learning environments. The related idea of stereotype threat will also be discussed.

Work in progress — Reporting S-STEM retention: New diversity vs. Supporting existing diversity

The Scientific Leadership Scholars (SLS) Program is an NSF S-STEM sponsored scholarship for financially and academically eligible students in Computer Science, Environmental Resources Engineering and Mathematics at Humboldt State University. The scholarship has sponsored 57 students in these majors over the past 4 years. Of these students, 54% were underrepresented minorities and 70% were underrepresented in STEM. The first group (Group 1) of students recruited to the program brought additional diversity to the three academic programs. To fill the spots vacated by SLS students who no longer met the requirements of the SLS program after their first or second years, additional SLS students were recruited from existing CS, ERE and Math majors. This second group (Group 2) drew from existing diversity in the three SLS programs. The retention outcomes of these two groups are quite different due to the nature of the populations. As far as the authors know, no other work has operationalized the concept of supporting existing diversity in this way.

Race, gender and first generation status in Computing Science, Engineering and Math persistence

The NSF sponsored Scientific Leadership Scholars (SLS) program at Humboldt State University (HSU) provides scholarships to a diverse cohort of students in Computing Science, Environmental Resources Engineering or Mathematics. The program targeted financially eligible Native American and first generation students. The SLS group persisting into year three remained more diverse than earlier corresponding major cohorts: 22 (59%) were either women and/or underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM. In the 2007–08 academic year, 36 Cohort 1 students entered the program. Of the Cohort 1 freshmen, 23 (66%) persisted into their second year and 12 (33%) persisted into their third year as SLS majors. White and Asian Cohort 1 students were more likely to persist than STEM URM students (47%, n= 8 compared to 21%, n=4). In 2008–09, 15 additional SLS students were added. Of these students, 12 (80%) persisted into their third year as an SLS major. While all white students (6) in Cohort 2 persisted, 67% (6) of the underrepresented students persisted. All 4 women in Cohort 2 persisted. There was no significant difference in the persistence based on gender or first generation status. Recommendations are included.