Kurt Paterson

Development for the other 80%: Engineering hope *

Summary Engineering faces many challenges: most of the world’s population is under-served by designers and interest in engineering is declining among students. International sustainable development engineering programs provide hope; hope for those overlooked by engineers, and hope for academics to rejuvenate interest in engineering education, research and practice. At Michigan Technological University international sustainable development programs focused on developing communities have coalesced into the D80 Center that focuses on providing hope to the 80% of the world’s population poorly served by engineered goods, services and infrastructure. Based on 10 years of experience, the programs clearly resonate with a more diverse student body and produce resilient, service-oriented, globally-minded engineers.

Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research: Community Engagement in Engineering Education as a Way to Increase Inclusiveness

Introduction There has been a recent surge in community engagement (CE) efforts in engineering education. These efforts have involved a spectrum of academic avenues – from curricular to co-curricular to extracurricular – that cover community-based projects in local to global settings. For example, many CE experiences can be embedded within courses in the traditional pedagogical form of service-learning, although in many cases CE activities are implemented and/or facilitated by nonacademic organizations, such as Engineers Without Borders (EWB). These activities continue to undergo increasing levels of design, management, and assessment, the latter driven, in part, by the outcomes assessment requirements for ABET engineering program accreditation in the United States, but also because of apparent positive impacts to student participants. Previous studies indicate that the knowledge and skills gained by the students are at least on par with gains from traditional education models (e.g., see Bielefeldt, Paterson, & Swan, 2010). Additional attention also is being focused increasingly on the potential impacts of CE on student attitudes and identity (Paterson, Swan, & Guzak, 2012) as well as long-term impacts on students as they enter the professional ranks (Canney & Bielefeldt, 2012). It is in these areas that differences in the influence of CE may appear more profound, yet small numbers of student participants in various programs and a lack of coordinated assessment efforts provide limited evidence that such results exist. This chapter highlights the development of CE in engineering education and possible research endeavors that can be taken to shed new light on its potential impact.

True grit: Toward a culture of psychological preparedness in engineering education

The rigors of engineering education present each student with a unique set of academic and psychological challenges. Established interventional strategies are typically focused on enhancing academic - rather than psychological - preparedness, potentially leaving many students vulnerable to various demotivating factors. Participants in this special session will collaborate to develop a nucleus of ideas to inform the future development of psychological preparedness strategies - interventions specifically designed to facilitate productive processes such as self-efficacy, self-discipline, resilience, and motivation.

Evaluation of Well Designs to Improve Access to Safe and Clean Water in Rural Tanzania

The objective of this study was to examine three well designs: drilled wells (20–30 m deep), closed dug wells (>5 m deep), and hand-dug open wells (<5 m deep), to determine the water quality for improving access to safe and clean water in rural communities. Heterotrophic plate count (HPC), total coliforms (TC), Escherichia coli (E. coli) and turbidity, were used to assess the water quality of 97 wells. Additionally, the study looked at the microflora diversity of the water, focusing on potential pathogens using outgrowth, PCR, and genome sequencing for 10 wells. Concentrations of TC for the open dug wells (4 × 104 CFU/100 mL) were higher than the drilled (2 × 103 CFU/100 mL) and closed dug wells (3 × 103 CFU/100 mL). E. coli concentration for drilled and closed dug wells was <22 MPN (most probable number)/100 mL, but higher for open wells (>154 MPN/100 mL). The drilled well turbidity (11 NTU) was within the standard deviation of the closed well (28 NTU) compared to open dug wells (49 NTU). Drilled and closed wells had similar microbial diversity. There were no significant differences between drilled and closed dug wells. The covering and lining of hand-dug wells should be considered as an alternative to improve access to safe and clean water in rural communities.

Panel: Engineering and development: Facilitating successful project work in diverse global contexts

Over the last decade, a growing number of initiatives have emerged to provide engineering students, faculty, and professionals with opportunities to work on service-oriented projects in developing contexts. And while these courses and programs provide needed resources and services to communities in far-flung locations, they also pose unique challenges and difficulties. For example, projects of this type often require knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are not typically covered in traditional engineering courses nor possessed by many faculty. Additionally, there is growing recognition regarding the need to predict and evaluate the full range of impacts that student projects have on partner communities - both positive and negative. This panel engages these kinds of challenges by bringing together a group of individuals with extensive experience preparing engineering students for project work in developing contexts. In addition to representing programs at four institutions (Colorado School of Mines, Michigan Technological University, Purdue University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute), the presenters are involved with a host of related national and international initiatives. Each panelist will give an overview of their efforts, with particular emphasis on observed successes and failures, conceptual hurdles faced by students and professionals, pedagogical approaches employed, and most useful resources. The primary audience for this panel includes faculty, staff, and students who lead, support, and/or study global service learning. To enable a more engaging, interactive, and productive session, ample time will be provided to allow attendees to describe their own experiences, share resources, and pose questions. The primary intent of the panel is to help university students, faculty, and staff be more effective when undertaking engineering work in developing contexts. including by promoting scholarly community and collaboration, sharing resources, and seeding new research initiatives.

Special session — It's a Safari out there: An allegory for learning to navigate academia

One of the key challenges at the beginning of an academic career is learning to live in the university working environment. Interactions between academics can be significantly different to those found in industry; and whilst many of the drivers for the organisation are similar, there are also some aspects that are unique to a university. Being able to successfully navigate through the office politics is exceptionally valuable to academic staff, both new and established. In order to do this, it is essential to understand what motivates both yourself and your colleagues. This workshop will use an African Safari as a metaphor for the academic working environment, allocating animals to represent some of the archetypes that are present within an Engineering department.