Building Your Change-agent Toolkit: The Power of Story
- Conference
- Location
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Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2018
- Start Date
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June 23, 2018
- End Date
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July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
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Imagining and Reimagining Engineering Education as a Dynamic System
- Tagged Division
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Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Page Count
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17
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--30166
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/30166
- Download Count
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877
Paper Authors
Jennifer Karlin Minnesota State University, Mankato
Jennifer Karlin spent the first half of her career at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where she was a professor of industrial engineering and held the Pietz professorship for entrepreneurship and economic development. She is now a research professor of integrated engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and the managing partner of Kaizen Academic.
Rebecca A. Bates Minnesota State University, Mankato
Rebecca A. Bates received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington. She also received the M.T.S. degree from Harvard Divinity School. She is currently Professor in the Department of Integrated Engineering program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, home of the Iron Range and Twin Cities Engineering programs.
Cheryl Allendoerfer University of Washington
Dr. Allendoerfer is the Manager of Tutoring Services at Shoreline Community College.
Dan Ewert Anderson Industries
Dr. Ewert has been involved in cardiovascular engineering for over 25 years in both research and instruction. He has consulted for major medical device companies in the area of cardiovascular engineering and performed research with US and international colleagues. He has a broad background in mechanical and electrical engineering, and physiology with specific training and expertise. His work includes modeling the cardiovascular system, ventricular assist devices, cardiac physiology, instrumentation systems and leadless cardiac pacing. He help developed and was the inaugural director of a project-based-learning engineering curriculum. As Chief Innovation and Culture Officer in industry, He is now involved in discovery-based-learning on multi-disciplinary teams.
Ronald R. Ulseth Itasca Community College
Ron Ulseth directs and instructs in the Iron Range Engineering program in Virginia, Minnesota and he teaches in the Itasca Community College engineering program in Grand Rapids, MN. He was instrumental in growing the Itasca program from 10 students in 1992 to 160 students in 2010. In 2009, he worked with a national development team of engineering educators to develop the 100% PBL curriculum used in the Iron Range model. He has successfully acquired and managed over $10 million in educational grants including as PI on 7 grants from NSF. He has been in the classroom, teaching more than 20 credits per year to engineering students for more than 25 years. His specific areas of expertise are in active learning, faculty development, and learning community development. He has been awarded the 2012 Progress Minnesota award, 2012 Labovitz Entrepreneurialism award, and 2012 Innovator of the Year award from the Rural Community College Alliance all for his work in developing the Iron Range Engineering program. His degrees are in civil engineering (B.S., University of North Dakota), mechanical engineering (M.S., University of Central Florida), and engineering education (PhD, Aalborg University). He is licensed as a professional engineer in the state of Minnesota.
Abstract
“Once upon a time…”
“Long ago, in a land far, far away…”
Stories have been an important part of how humans remember their past and hope for a bright future long before we created written language. Telling our lived stories and listening to others’ stories are part of how we make sense of our lives and build our communities. It is no wonder that stories hold us in such thrall and have power in our relationships and organizations. Both listening to and telling stories are important skills for engineering educators and change agents at any career stage. Listening to the stories others tell provides an important glimpse into the values, beliefs, and assumptions made by those in the organization, and help us make sense of how our own stories fit into a given community. For example, a faculty member new to a department or a dean new to a college may be seeking allies to support an innovative curricular change; careful parsing of the stories told by others in the department or college may indicate who will be supportive and who is likely to only give lip service. Over time, changing the stories told, as well as telling new stories, shifts the assumptions of a group and how concepts turn into meaning.
Karlin, J., & Bates, R. A., & Allendoerfer, C., & Ewert, D., & Ulseth, R. R. (2018, June), Building Your Change-agent Toolkit: The Power of Story Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30166
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