engineering competencies that are not exclusively synonymous with male, whiteor middle-class ideologies.For readers who are not classroom instructors, we believe that being mindful of how smartness isculturally constructed can help you better understand how you participate in a co-construction ofsmartness that may be exclusive, especially with respect to the cultural barriers inherent to abilitypresent for underrepresented students in engineering. In the end, we all must take responsibilitybecause we participate in the construction of smartness. It is our hope that this work can helpencourage those in both academic and non-academic settings to reflect on how they contribute tothis potential gatekeeper and how their tacit assumptions about