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Developing Engineering Identity Through Story

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

June 26, 2024

Conference Session

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division Technical Session 2

Tagged Division

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division (ENT)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--47165

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/47165

Download Count

86

Paper Authors

biography

Michelle Marincel Payne Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

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Dr. Michelle Marincel Payne is an Associate Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology, and her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla (same school, different name). At Rose-Hulman, Michelle is leading a project to use story to help students find their identities as engineers, and a project to improve teaming by teaching psychological safety in engineering education curricula. Michelle also mentors undergraduate researchers to investigate the removal of stormwater pollutants in engineered wetlands. Michelle was a 2018 ExCEEd Fellow, and was recognized as the 2019 ASCE Daniel V. Terrell Awardee.

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biography

Julia M. Williams Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8367-9463

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Dr. Julia M. Williams is Professor of English at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.She is the author of Making Changes in STEM Education: The Change Maker's Toolkit (Routledge 2023).

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Ben Jelen Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8812-0127

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Abstract

The narratives we tell ourselves influence our behaviors and actions. However, engineering students may not even know what those narratives are and how those stories are affecting them. In many cases, students are subjected to a rigorous technical curriculum as soon as they step foot on campus and sometimes find themselves in fields that are predominantly white and male to which they may not feel they fully belong. For some students, these environments may make them question if they belong in engineering, on our campus, or in higher education at all. Story is a tool that can allow students to make connections between their past, current, and potential future selves to develop their identity as an engineer. Students who may not otherwise view themselves as an engineer, a curious person, an entrepreneur, a person with great ideas that society needs, or a part of the university’s ecosystem, may be able to demonstrate their potential to themselves and to their community through their lived experiences. Providing time for students to develop and tell their stories is a powerful way to validate students’ vast experiences they bring with them to the academe. Faculty want to know their students and students want to know themselves. Our work with story in this context was inspired by the KEEN on Stories project and reflects our interest in instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in our students. In this paper, we describe the storytelling opportunities we offer student engineers in their freshman, junior, and senior years, such as writing stories in a variety of classes and disseminating their stories through podcasting. Using interviews, we share and reflect on the impacts of these storytelling opportunities for students and for faculty.

Marincel Payne, M., & Williams, J. M., & Jelen, B. (2024, June), Developing Engineering Identity Through Story Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47165

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