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A Third University is Possible? A Collaborative Inquiry within Engineering Education

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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

Thinking Outside the STEM Box: Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division Technical Session 1

Page Count

23

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41827

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41827

Download Count

1203

Paper Authors

biography

Joseph Valle University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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Joseph ’Joey’ Valle holds a doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Their engineering education research focuses on understanding and seeking ways to undo oppression based harm in engineering. They hold a B.S.E in materials science and engineering from MIT and a M.S.E in materials science and engineering from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, with a focus on electrochemical energy storage systems.

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biography

Amy Slaton Drexel University

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I am a historian of science, technology and engineering, with a focus on engineering education. I am based at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

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biography

Donna Riley Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Donna Riley is Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education and Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.
Riley earned a B.S.E. in chemical engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Engineering and Public Policy. She is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

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Abstract

Engineering education is a terrain of struggle dominated by capitalist, white supremacist, and settler colonial logics and structures. Dominant forms of engineering education today function to reinforce these interlocking logics and structures, exacerbating existing societal inequities by distorting life-giving relationships to land, labor, and lives in ways that are incommensurable with decolonial projects. Put another way: the long-standing societal inequities on which EuroAmerican capitalism relies are sustained by engineering education as we know it.

Within the so-called United States, colleges and universities are the primary sites for the reproduction of dominant engineering education. As such, engineering education researchers within colleges and universities exist at a critical junction capable of shifting dominant engineering education toward an anticolonial praxis. Drawing from la paperson's 2017 text A Third University is Possible, we come together as settler scholars to unpack ways in which our structural agency can be used to reconfigure assemblages within the university towards decolonizing, or “third” universities.

La paperson’s text does not explicitly address engineering epistemics or pedagogical commitments specifically but offers an overall critique of concepts such as productivity, economic contribution and achievement that ground the familiar “second” (neoliberal) US university today. Leveraging a collaborative inquiry methodology, we have learned from each other as a group from the social sciences, engineering education, and engineering through memoing and dialogue. We know we reproduce that which we desire and struggle against, occupying inherently incommensurable positions. As we intentionally cultivate hope for ourselves through our collaboration, we leverage transformative justice tools toward a praxis of collective accountability to counter settler moves to innocence discussed in Tuck and Yang’s essay Decolonization is not a metaphor.

Valle, J., & Slaton, A., & Riley, D. (2022, August), A Third University is Possible? A Collaborative Inquiry within Engineering Education Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41827

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