Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California, San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2010-129: TRAINED TO DISENGAGE? A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OFSOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AMONGENGINEERING STUDENTSErin Cech, University of California, San Diego Erin Cech’s research examines individual-level, cultural mechanisms that reproduce inequality, especially those pertaining to sex segregation in science and engineering fields. Her dissertation explores the self-expressive edge of inequality, analyzing how gender schemas and self-conceptions influence the career decisions of college students over time. Her other work examines the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual engineering students (with Tom Waidzunas), the work devotion of and perceptions of inequality among high

Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Walsh, California Polytechnic State University; Stacey Breitenbach, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

InstitutionAbstractThe BA in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies provides an educational vehicle for the personwho seeks a career within which a knowledge of engineering and an ability to interact withengineers is critical, but who does not want a traditional engineering career. This degree willproduce more technologically literate students who understand the principles of engineering andwho will apply them to the profession they choose to pursue as citizens of a deeply technologicalsociety, but will not produce more practicing engineers immediately or directly. Thesignificance of engineering lies mainly in its relation to other societal sectors. Clearly engineersmust be more aware of this interrelationship, and the leaders of other sectors must become

Conference Session

Redefining the Boundaries of Engineering and Liberal Education: Contributions to the Year of Dialogue

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California-San Diego; Kara Boettcher, Montana State University; Heidi Sherick, Montana State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

percentage of engineering graduates employed in non-technical jobs decreasedby 8.7% between 1993 and 2003. This means fewer engineering graduates in 2003 used theirexpert problem-solving skills to solve problems in non-technical fields than ten years prior. Thepotential consequences of this finding are discussed in the next section.This trend is exasperated for women engineering graduates whose presence in non-technical jobsdecreased by 13.5%. Like all quantitative data, this information could be read in a number ofways. One interpretation is that the retention of women engineers in technical careers increasedover the last decade—a success for diversity in those fields. However, changes across fields saynothing about where women and men are located

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Schreier, University of Dayton; Carl Eger, University of Dayton; Margaret Pinnell, University of Dayton

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

and effectiveness of ETHOS programming onstudents post graduation, efforts were made to survey all alumni having participated ininternational technical immersions. This survey was designed to capture results of programmaticgoals and understand the role of service-learning programs on engineers’ career and life paths. This paper will describe qualitative results of international technical immersionexperiences through alumni surveys and interviews. Review of these data will provideassessment of the ETHOS program’s international technical immersions, classroom instruction,course resources, course facilitation and requirements. Recommendations for futuredevelopment and assessment will be considered.Background:Academic institutions are

Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gary Downey, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

international engineering educators to identify what led them to such workand made it worthwhile, sometimes at considerable risk to their careers. Drawing evidence fromlengthy personal geographies written by sixteen international educators, this paper reports that akey feature of their pathways has been experiences outside home countries that led them toquestion their own knowledge and normative commitments and want others, prospectiveengineers in particular, to have opportunities for similar experiences. Characterized here as“adding identities” outside home countries, these transformational steps helped motivatesubsequent efforts to add practices to engineering education that would challenge students toconfront their assumptions about the knowledge

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Ross, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

alternative energy sources. And that was good as far as itwent; my sense was that it did not go far enough.FIGs at UW-MadisonIn Fall of 2007 I had the opportunity to conduct one of only two FIG (Freshman Interest Group)courses in the College of Engineering. This led me to a review of ideas for first year curriculumreform. Most first year programs have as a primary aim the improved retention and academicsupport for beginning students; an emphasis on under-represented students is usually important.In addition, such programs strive to move freshmen more quickly into a mature and productiveunderstanding of their career choices and their implications; essential skills can be emphasized insuch programs to speed up the students’ development of engineering

Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tom Moran, Rochester Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

,noting that the single “A” grade was in English, and sarcastically suggesting that his son mightbetter pursue “literary engineering” rather than the real thing.1 Hickam finished his engineeringstudies and enjoyed a successful engineering career but he is best known for his “literaryengineering”, in particular a narrative of the rocket launching campaign he and his friends, all thesons of West Virginia coal miners, embarked upon in the shadow of Sputnik, a story brought tothe screen as the popular movie October Sky.Hickam is not alone. Engineering has provided a starting place for a surprising number of quitesuccessful creative writers, including poets, short story writers and novelists. These writer-engineers have won awards, gathered smash

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sally Blomstrom, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Hak Tam, University of California, Santa Barbara

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

is intended for first year students. We expect thestudents to gain competencies in these areas: 1. Demonstrate increased abilities in speech, personal communication, and career communication. 2. Demonstrate the presentation of speeches to inform and to persuade (to convince, to activate). 3. Lead or participate in group discussions reaching problem-solving or fact-finding goals, and respond to comments and questions from the audience while maintaining objectivity. 4. Maintain group cohesiveness by using task and maintenance behaviors (including recording and analyzing your group uses of these group dynamic actions.) 5. Use informative, persuasive, and empathetic listening strategies and write journal entries

Conference Session

Historical Perspectives for Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alice Pawley, Purdue University; Karen Tonso, Wayne State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

-34.” Marriageable material indeed — at least, in this article, the newspaperdoes not publish Cobb’s home street address. This is in contrast with the 1954 story in theDetroit News27 of Pieti (whom we met above) who had become “the first woman automotiveengineer officially to represent Chrysler Corp.” and who “lives with 10 other career girls in thechocolate brown and powder blue house at 825 Chicago, known by the girls’ dates as MantrapManor.” Here, women engineers were clearly positioned as the sexual objects of men.Not surprisingly perhaps, there was scant profiling of married women as engineers, or of lesbianengineers. One married engineer was described28 in 1958 as a “30-year-old green eyed blond”who is described exotically with her

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Byron Newberry, Baylor University; William Lawson, Texas Tech University; Kathy Austin, Texas Tech University; Greta Gorsuch, Texas Tech University; Thomas Darwin, University of Texas at Austin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

have encountered some form of professional ethics instruction at the undergraduate levelbecause of current ABET requirements. But for graduate students coming from undergraduateinstitutions in other countries, we can neither be sure that they have received any professionalethics instruction at the undergraduate level, nor that they are familiar with the particularconceptions of the engineering profession and of professional ethics in this country.This is not of great concern for those graduate students who return to their countries of origin topursue their careers. But 45% of the approximately 140,000 engineering graduate students in theU.S. are international students, and up to two thirds of those have plans to stay in the UnitedStates to

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Judith Norback, Georgia Institute of Technology; Nicoleta Serban, Georgia Institute of Technology; Nagi Gebraeel, Georgia Institute of Technology; Garlie Forehand, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Basic Statistical Methods course as a pilotproject in 2006[25] and then during the Fall of 2007. This paper focuses on the results from 2007. Page 13.304.2To the best of our knowledge, the approach is unique in the following ways: 1 1) The instruction is based on workforce input. Engineers, managers, and senior executives have been interviewed to see what communication skills new engineers need to be job competitive and to quickly ascend the career ladder. 2) The instruction involves repeated practice of oral

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering II

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; James Heisler, Hope College; Thomas Ludwig, Hope College; Roger Nemeth, Hope College; James Piers, Hope College; Neal Sobania, Pacific Lutheran University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

prior to entry into the demanding world of work2. Page 11.1142.3While some hold that Japanese undergraduates work less hard than their UScounterparts6,7, others conclude that workloads and effort expended are comparable8.Japanese education has also been characterized as a more dispersed life-long processcompared to the US, especially in technical fields6. It consists of rigorous broad-basedtraining before college, focused study as an undergraduate, and acquisition of applied orpractical knowledge on the job. In contrast, most aspects of career training in the UnitedStates are concentrated almost entirely into the undergraduate program. While

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary and Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bradley Rogers, Arizona State University; Dale Palmgren, Arizona State University; Dennis Giever, Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Mary Lynn Garcia, Sandia National Laboratories

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Sandia methodology for security system design and evaluation will beemphasized. The Sandia methodology is a rigorous and scientific systems engineering approachto security that embraces the unique contributions from varied specialists on the security team,while maintaining focus on the overarching goal of effective security. The result will be thatstudents will develop a more complete, broader way of approaching the problem of security, andunderstand the unforeseen problems that can be induced by poorly conceived and implementedsolutions. Graduates will better appreciate the contributions of individual experts in the securityteam, understand the role and importance of their own specialty, and, as their careers evolve andexpand into management

Conference Session

Communication - Needs and Methods

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Warren Waggenspack, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Sarah Liggett, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Warren Hull, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; David Bowles, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Stephen Sears, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Daniel Thomas, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Paige Davis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Warren R. Hull, Sr. manages the Engineering Communications Studio at Louisiana State University. He earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University and an M.S. in Environmental Health from Harvard University. His engineering career spans over 40 years. He is a licensed Professional Engineer who was previously an engineering consultant, and is also a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel.David Bowles, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge David (Boz) Bowles is a Technical Communication Instructor in the Engineering Communication Studio at Louisiana State University. He earned a baccalaureate degree in English and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Virginia

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Zhiwei Guan, University of Washington; Jennifer Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

entire course content is something that's, you know, valuable to employers, and if you can present it in like some easy, visual way, like maybe create like a block diagram or something or flowchart.”Portfolios could be used useful when preparing career documents. As a student with aninterdisciplinary background, she was also struggling with the complexity of presentingherself to future employers. She reported having to prepare different documents aboutherself for different audiences. She seemed to suggest that a course-based portfolio couldprovide her a chance to write statements about the profession and knowledge for eachcourse. If done across her courses, she could accumulate a pool of statements from whichshe could easily select

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I: Innovative Models for Curriculum and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marie Paretti, Virginia Tech; Lisa McNair, Virginia Tech; Diana George, Virginia Tech; kelly belanger, Virginia Tech; Lisa Norris, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

strategies for effectivelyincorporate writing and speaking into engineering courses1-41. The approaches include writing-to-learn exercises to enhance students’ mastery of technical concepts, individual courses thataddress specific types of documents and presentations (e.g., the design report, the laboratoryreport), and integrated curricula that support students throughout a curriculum. What all of theseapproaches share is a commitment to helping students learn to use writing productively in theirengineering careers. Whether it be an emphasis on writing to learn, where students come to seewriting as a tool for thinking, or introducing students to the types of genres common in aparticular discipline, engineering faculty are seeking ways to support

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering I

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arthur Snider, University of South Florida

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

subject of fine artfrom a perspective where technology-oriented students would have an advantage, rather than ahandicap; to exploit the experience so as to reinforce some aspect of engineering science byreviewing it in a new context; and to place the engineering students in an environment composedmostly of others in the same discipline.BackgroundAlthough many engineering students would argue otherwise, an exposure to the arts is anessential part of every undergraduate's curriculum. This is underscored by its de facto inclusion,in some form, in the required "distributional elective" hours imposed by virtually every degreeprogram in the United States. Educators recognize that many young people who selecttechnology as a career objective at an early

Conference Session

Blurring the Boundary between Content Knowledge and Professional Knowledge

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Verna Fitzsimmons, Kent State University - Kent; Stephane Booth, Kent State University - Kent

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

implementing and sustaining a lean effort.Students enrolled in this course were either seniors or graduate students and all had someindustrial experience through coop, internships or regular employment. On the first dayof class, the reflective journal assignment was briefly explained; a handout on reflectivejournal entries was distributed, as was a rubric for its evaluation. Given the level of thestudents enrolled in this course, it was assumed that they had been asked sometimeduring their earlier liberal education academic careers to write in a reflective manner.However, it became apparent to the instructors by the second week of class that areflective journal and its purpose was an entirely foreign concept to the students. Thiswas not as shocking of

Conference Session

Thinking around the Bachelor of Arts in Engineering

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sharon Jones, Lafayette College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

University’s IDEAS B.S. program that integrates the arts, engineering, and sciences into one non-ABET accredited degree [Students have the option to structure their curriculum so they can also get a traditional B.S. degree.] o Provides a technical liberal arts preparation for non-engineering design careers. These programs retain students who become disillusioned with design in engineering departments and engineering colleges.• Engineering courses for non engineers included in the general education requirements o E.g. Princeton University’s Center for Innovation in Engineering Education with multiple courses, Harvard University’s freshman course(s) titled Introduction to the World of

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Endeavor

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Brocato, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

authentic engineering situations. The first case study, “The Pendergrass Circuits E-mail,” is a one-page story that literally puts students into the narrative as a character, requiringthem to read, analyze, discuss, and reflect on the story’s details before deciding what sorts ofactions and written documentation are necessary. The second case study involves close analysisof the space shuttle Challenger disaster, in particular the written and oral communication thattook place prior to the disaster itself. As this paper shows, using case studies as described herecan provide students with valuable exposure to the types of decisions they might have to make intheir professional careers while also providing engineering programs with a sound method

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Lappenbusch, University of Washington; Jennifer Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2007-2010: WHAT PORTFOLIO CONSTRUCTION EFFORTS REVEALABOUT STUDENTS’ SEARCH FOR ENGINEERING IDENTITYSteve Lappenbusch, University of Washington Steve Lappenbusch is a Ph.D. student in the University of Washington Technical Communication department. His research assistant work investigates how to improve engineering learning. His dissertation topic is risk management in humanitarian relief communication systems.Jennifer Turns, University of Washington Jennifer Turns is an associate professor in the University of Washington Technical Communication department. Her research interests include user-centered design and engineering learning. Her National Science Foundation CAREER grant funds

Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Juan Lucena, Colorado School of Mines; Jen Schneider, Colorado School of Mines; Jon Leydens, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

part of her work. Through many events and circumstances, includinglearning to see water not as a physical object to be moved across space but as a resource to beprotected, she conceived and implemented strategies that empower communities to take controlof their own water consumption, sanitation, and treatment. Throughout her career, this engineerbecame an agent of organizational change, political action and community empowerment. Shemobilized organizational resources and drafted national legislation to protect water as a resource,engaged social scientists in her attempts to communicate with communities, and more recentlydeveloped community-based processes to map communities and their water use. Throughout herexperiences she learned that

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gayle Ermer, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

release, and the Three Mile Islandnuclear reactor near melt-down.Causes related to personal ethics include the immoral actions of people that contribute tocatastrophic failures. This type of cause is usually opposed in the engineering curriculumthrough the study of engineering codes of ethics and case studies to help students clarifythe moral responsibilities inherent in their chosen career and to apply them faithfully.Causes related to societal evil include the political and economic contexts in whichmodern technology operates that contribute to engineering disasters. While some of theseissues are dealt with in the context of engineering ethics, often they are better dealt within liberal arts courses which intentionally raise the consciousness

Conference Session

Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in the World of Corporate Business

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

needs, working to endpoverty, or providing students with cross-cultural design experience in preparation for careers ina globalized economy, numerous small-scale engineering projects have proliferated indeveloping countries, either driven by or with participation from U.S. engineers and engineeringstudents. Many different models have been employed to this end, curricular and co-curricular, incollaboration with foreign governments, educational institutions or non-governmentalorganizations, with entrepreneurial, sustainable, appropriate technology and/or community-basedapproaches to design.These engineering projects are occurring in the context of globalization and broader economicdevelopment efforts. It is important that we in the engineering

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julie Sharp, Vanderbilt University; Marilyn Dyrud, Oregon Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

body paragraph? Is the topic specifically linked to your career (engineering, finance, etc.) so that the audience will know why you are discussing this topic? 4. Organization: Is the paper organized appropriately with Page 14.1287.4 headings? Is a main point (thesis) stated? Are the paragraphs divided logically? Are subpoints expressed in topic sentences for each body paragraph? Is the order of subpoints logical? 5. Development of paragraphs: Are paragraphs developed logically with relevant, specific, sufficient details? Do details stay on the subject? Are they appropriate? 6

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Luke Niiler; David Beams, University of Texas-Tyler

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

or shape” of their argument, as well as a “concernfor their readership” (p. 50) and, most significantly, an understanding of writing as “an act ofdiscovery” (p. 53) which proceeds in a nonlinear fashion. How experienced, how sophisticated,were UT-Tyler’s sophomores? The authors also wanted to begin to understand the extent towhich Engineering students considered writing to be an act of learning, and not simply a meansof transmitting data. Sommers and Saltz 16 have shown that student writers who learn the mostthroughout their college careers tend to “see in writing a larger purpose than fulfilling anassignment” (p.124): again, how would the sophomore cohort measure up? Finally, the authors

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Betty Harper, Pennsylvania State University; Lisa Lattuca, Pennsylvania State University; Alexander Yin, Penn State University; Patrick Terenzini, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

education through graduate study in engineering. This educationalmodel would be similar to that followed by those preparing for careers in law, medicine, andbusiness. In contrast, ABET’s EC2000 accreditation criteria allow a more moderate approachthat places greater emphasis on liberal education in the undergraduate engineering program.NAE’s E2020 reports occupy a middle ground, advocating for even greater curricular breadthand liberal education than ABET’s EC2000 accreditation criteria require but stopping short of acomplete restructuring of undergraduate engineering education. The Engineer of 2020, inparticular, presents the engineering education of the future as liberal education, stressing theroles of interdisciplinarity, communication

Conference Session

Historical Perspectives for Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Slaton, Drexel University; Mary Ebeling, Drexel University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

the late nineteenth century. In every era, educators, economic analysts and policy makershave sought to forecast the productive needs of American industry and to train workers, at many Page 15.1284.2levels of skill and career mobility, to fulfill those labor needs. For generations, planners havecalled for the instruction of highly qualified engineers and less trained technicians, along withminimally trained laborers, to serve the national economy and provide economic opportunity toindividual citizens. Owners and managers of industrial firms have often contributed to thisdiscourse, including through their participation on government

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kristyn Masters, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Sarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

goal of our study, it is important to note that this module is not intendedto compete with or take the place of a thorough education in engineering ethics and ethicalproblem-solving. Instead, we are presenting this method as a means to achieve ethics across theengineering curriculum, particularly in our research-based institutional context. Integratingethics discussions throughout the engineering curriculum reinforces to students that ethics andengineering are closely intertwined, and helps to prepare them for the decisions they will make intheir future careers. The success of the DISORDER module encourages us to continue offeringit in our own courses, and the feedback from faculty suggests that expanded use throughout theengineering curricula

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Endeavor

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

purpose is to, e.g., accommodate larger attachments than inboxes can holdon the employer's e-mail system? Suppose the employer has a policy (as some universities do)of allowing private use of the employer’s computer equipment, as long as it does not hinderofficial use? How can our students protect their accounts against break-ins? Not only does thiscase raise important privacy issues, it also touches on the issue of separation of work andpersonal life, which all of our students will face as they begin their careers.1. IntroductionWhen someone, allegedly David Kernell [1], hacked into Vice-Presidential candidate SarahPalin’s Yahoo account [2] last September 16, he highlighted a distinction that is rapidly growingin importance in today’s social