A Model for Student-led Development and Implementation of a Required Graduate-level Course on History, Ethics, and Identity in Aerospace Engineering

Emily Palmer; Jacqueline Tawney; Jennifer Weaver

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Aerospace Division Technical Session: Pedagogy and Curriculum
Page Count: 16
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40748
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/40748
Download Count: 432

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Paper Authors

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Emily Palmer California Institute of Technology

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Emily H. Palmer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT). Her current research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying steady state flight control in Drosophila melanogaster. She has been involved in numerous educational outreach programs throughout her undergraduate and graduate career, and holds a leadership position in the GALCIT graduate student council. She earned her M.S. from Caltech in Aeronautics in 2019, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2018.

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Jacqueline Tawney California Institute of Technology

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Jacqueline (Jacque) Tawney is a Ph.D. candidate in GALCIT (Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology). Jacque is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, member of the GALCIT Graduate Student Council, and founder of Women in GALCIT. At Caltech, Jacque researchers polymer drag reduction in turbulent pipe flow with experiments and mathematical modeling. She is passionate about creating positive change within her communities and being a compassionate and inclusive scientist and leader.

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Jennifer Weaver

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Dr. Jenn Weaver is currently the Director of Curriculum at UC Berkeley Executive Education, a division within the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley. Until the fall of 2020, she was the Associate Director for University Teaching and a Lecturer at Caltech.

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Abstract

Engineering is often treated as apolitical fact, removing historical context, ethical responsibility, and human subjectivity from the field. As such, engineering programs, especially at the graduate level, often do not require that students engage with these aspects of their discipline in a meaningful way. But the failure of engineering to attract, retain, and provide a supportive environment for underrepresented students underscores a pressing need to address the historical, political, and social dimensions of the field in academic environments at all learning stages. Further, the particular history and function of aerospace engineering poses unique questions and challenges which higher education should work to address. We posit that for educational institutions to create capable engineers who are also the future leaders in the field of aerospace engineering, it is critical that students are well-equipped to ask and answer questions which properly contextualize their work.

Upon recognizing this need for contextualizing aerospace engineering within our graduate curriculum, we, a team of doctoral students, proposed, developed, and implemented a required graduate-level course on history, ethics, and identity in engineering. The curriculum was designed in collaboration with on-campus pedagogy and DEI experts who were familiar with the issues facing the aerospace engineering department. With the intention of building an inclusive environment of trust and mutual learning, the course’s subject matter progressed from historical case studies, to current ethical issues, and finally to the intersection of identity and STEM. The course aimed to illuminate various dimensions of academic and industry-based engineering to graduate students with disparate exposure to these subjects. In practice, external speakers with relevant expertise were invited to give 30-minute lectures, followed by discussions in groups facilitated by trained senior graduate students. Rather than teaching a prescribed moral code or political position, students were urged to think critically, share their perspectives, and be aware of how their work affects society on a larger scale. The successes were two-fold in that new graduate students attained the aforementioned learning outcomes, while senior graduate students gained practical professional development in both communication and facilitation skills.

We propose this framework as a model for the development and implementation of graduate-level history, ethics, and identity curricula in other aerospace engineering programs. Structurally, our seminar was implemented to complement an existing, required lecture series; there were therefore few administrative barriers given that no new course was created, there was no added workload for faculty or teaching assistants, and there were no additional curricular requirements for students. While we present the framework within an aerospace engineering curriculum, we believe that the same questions are applicable more broadly to engineering and science curriculums, and will discuss our current work to develop shared or parallel programs in other fields. Results of our student feedback surveys and focus group sessions providing lessons learned will be shared. In summary, this accessible framework of invited speaker seminars followed by student-facilitated discussions offers an inexpensive yet highly impactful method to enable engineering graduate students to develop as more aware, responsible, and inclusive leaders within our field.

Citation
Format

Palmer, E., & Tawney, J., & Weaver, J. (2022, August), A Model for Student-led Development and Implementation of a Required Graduate-level Course on History, Ethics, and Identity in Aerospace Engineering Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40748

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering is often treated as apolitical fact, removing historical context, ethical responsibility, and human subjectivity from the field. As such, engineering programs, especially at the graduate level, often do not require that students engage with these aspects of their discipline in a meaningful way. But the failure of engineering to attract, retain, and provide a supportive environment for underrepresented students underscores a pressing need to address the historical, political, and social dimensions of the field in academic environments at all learning stages. Further, the particular history and function of aerospace engineering poses unique questions and challenges which higher education should work to address. We posit that for educational institutions to create capable engineers who are also the future leaders in the field of aerospace engineering, it is critical that students are well-equipped to ask and answer questions which properly contextualize their work.

Upon recognizing this need for contextualizing aerospace engineering within our graduate curriculum, we, a team of doctoral students, proposed, developed, and implemented a required graduate-level course on history, ethics, and identity in engineering. The curriculum was designed in collaboration with on-campus pedagogy and DEI experts who were familiar with the issues facing the aerospace engineering department. With the intention of building an inclusive environment of trust and mutual learning, the course’s subject matter progressed from historical case studies, to current ethical issues, and finally to the intersection of identity and STEM. The course aimed to illuminate various dimensions of academic and industry-based engineering to graduate students with disparate exposure to these subjects. In practice, external speakers with relevant expertise were invited to give 30-minute lectures, followed by discussions in groups facilitated by trained senior graduate students. Rather than teaching a prescribed moral code or political position, students were urged to think critically, share their perspectives, and be aware of how their work affects society on a larger scale. The successes were two-fold in that new graduate students attained the aforementioned learning outcomes, while senior graduate students gained practical professional development in both communication and facilitation skills. 

We propose this framework as a model for the development and implementation of graduate-level history, ethics, and identity curricula in other aerospace engineering programs. Structurally, our seminar was implemented to complement an existing, required lecture series; there were therefore few administrative barriers given that no new course was created, there was no added workload for faculty or teaching assistants, and there were no additional curricular requirements for students. While we present the framework within an aerospace engineering curriculum, we believe that the same questions are applicable more broadly to engineering and science curriculums, and will discuss our current work to develop shared or parallel programs in other fields. Results of our student feedback surveys and focus group sessions providing lessons learned will be shared. In summary, this accessible framework of invited speaker seminars followed by student-facilitated discussions offers an inexpensive yet highly impactful method to enable engineering graduate students to develop as more aware, responsible, and inclusive leaders within our field.
AU  - Emily Palmer
AU  - Jacqueline Tawney
AU  - Jennifer Weaver
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - A Model for Student-led Development and Implementation of a Required Graduate-level Course on History, Ethics, and Identity in Aerospace Engineering
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/40748
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40748
ER  -