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

interest include sustainability, mechanical design, appropriate technology and service-learning.Margaret Pinnell, University of Dayton Margaret Pinnell is the director for the ETHOS program and assistant professor for the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Dayton. Her areas of interest include materials, materials characterization and service-learning. Page 11.1164.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 STUDENT PERSPECTIVES OF CURRICULUM-INTEGRATED INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL IMMERSIONSabstract: The Engineers in Technical, Humanitarian

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

Integrating H&SS in Engineering I

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College; Lionel Claris, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

grounded in one’s experience.An excerpt from Foucault’s Power/Knowledge discussing the “regime of truth” was used tostimulate critical thinking about the course content. In a reflective essay and class discussion,students considered the relationship between power and knowledge in thermodynamics andbeyond. Analyzing student responses to the Foucault reading and regular course reflectionsreveals a significant shift in their understanding of classroom pedagogy, an increase in criticalthinking about the course and its subject matter, and an emergence of independent ideas thatstudents pursued further in the course.IntroductionEngineering students continually confront the challenge of bridging the gap between theory andpractice, between curriculum

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

degrees in any given field 2,5,6.For Japanese students, entrance to universities is determined by performance on entranceachievement examinations taken at the end of high school. The examinations are difficultand challenging even for the best students. Outside observers have noted that Japanesehigh school is “not a minimal competency curriculum”1 and “pre-university education inJapan is demanding, and gets results.” 6There is inordinate competition for admittance into those few universities considered tobe the most desirable and prestigious. This stems from the hiring practices of the largestcorporations and the government in Japan which hire only graduates of certain schools7.Undergraduate grades are not considered to be an important factor in

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering II

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

M. Pinar Menguc, University of Kentucky; Ellie Hawes, University of Kentucky; Jane Jensen, University of Kentucky; Ingrid St. Omer, University of Kentucky

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

science to engineering applications, and the role of failure in the developmentprocess.Summary:As a foundations course, HON101B not only served as an introductory seminar in thehistory of emerging technologies, but also as the first step in a diagonal curriculum thatwe hope students will follow into graduate school. Beginning with the three courses thatmake up the Honors Track we hope to help our students understand the impact on and byother engineers to society through discussion and the creation of their own works.Following this sequence, students will be encouraged to continue to participate in UPoNthrough the Nano-scale Engineering Certificate Program offered through the College ofEngineering.We have begun a longitudinal evaluation study of

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering I

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald Carpenter, Lawrence Technological University; Andrew Gerhart, Lawrence Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Page 11.768.21. IntroductionIn recent years, there has been a call to integrate more of the so-called “soft skills” into theengineering curriculum, including written and oral communication, time management,teamwork, and leadership1. To be a successful engineer, these skills have been found necessaryby engineering industry. Introducing core courses to the engineering curriculum (e.g.,humanities, history, social sciences, communication courses) has been effective in alleviating thelack of necessary “soft-skills.” Unfortunately, the classroom is not always the best place to learnand practice these skills. Therefore, innovative techniques and out-of-class learning experiencesare paramount to the engineering curriculum. They allow the student a

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven VanderLeest, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

2006-85: JUSTICE AND HUMILITY IN TECHNOLOGY DESIGNSteven VanderLeest, Calvin College Steven H. VanderLeest is a Professor of Engineering at Calvin College. He has an M.S.E.E. from Michigan Tech. U. (1992) and Ph.D. from the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1995). He received a “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” Award in 2004 and 2005 and was director of a FIPSE grant “Building IT Fluency into a Liberal Arts Core Curriculum.” His research includes responsible technology and software partitioned OS. Page 11.851.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 Justice and

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary and Liberal Education

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Hilkat Soysal, Frostburg State University; Oguz Soysal, Frostburg State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

].The national trend in accreditation of higher education institutions in the USA leads to aninterdisciplinary curriculum to enhance technological literacy and scientific reasoning forall majors. In most of the colleges, the only way to ensure the exposition of liberal artsstudents to the fundamental concepts of science and engineering is the general educationprogram.The accreditation standards of the Middle States Association of Higher Education requirethat an institution’s general education program be designed “so that students acquire anddemonstrate college-level proficiency in general education and essential skills” includingskills in scientific reasoning. The Maryland Higher Education Commission hasconsequently mandated that all higher

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Luke Niiler; David Beams, University of Texas-Tyler

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

cohort have with their writing in Engineering courses are problems shared by other inexperienced writers in other disciplines. For example, while student writers Page 11.694.12 across the disciplines as observed by Dr. Niiler in the UT-Tyler Writing Center are not required to employ tables, figures and graphs in their written work, they are required to integrate and document secondary sources into their research papers. These students often place extended quoted material directly into the body of an essay with little to no regard for context. EWI student writers made the same error: assuming, like