Asee peer logo

Complementary and Contrasting Perspectives: Collaborative Teaching across Engineering, Computer Science, and the Liberal Arts

Download Paper |

Conference

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Publication Date

June 22, 2025

Start Date

June 22, 2025

End Date

August 15, 2025

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI) Technical Session 9

Tagged Division

Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

23

DOI

10.18260/1-2--56130

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/56130

Download Count

17

Paper Authors

author page

Carolyn M Rodak Union College

author page

Luke Dosiek Union College Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9953-0391

author page

Andrew Burkett Union College

author page

Christine Henseler Union College

author page

Christopher Chandler Union College

author page

Sohini Chattopadhyay Union College

author page

Nick Webb Union College

Download Paper |

Abstract

The Templeton Institute at Union College “catalyzes learning through a dynamic environment that fosters collaboration within and across engineering, computer science, and traditional liberal arts disciplines. Its mission is to enable connections, experimentation, innovation, and discovery through integrative coursework, projects, and research” (“Mission and Goals”). One mechanism used to complete this mission is the creation of multidisciplinary courses that blend Engineering, Computer Science, and the Liberal Arts. The Templeton Institute recognizes that time and resources can be barriers to designing new collaborative, multidisciplinary courses. To decrease the impact of these barriers, the Templeton Institute provides a number of one-time incentives for new course development, which provide critical support during the design and implementation phase of launching new courses.

In the 2024-2025 academic year, the Templeton Institute selected three team-taught courses through a competitive application process. The first course, AMU/ECE-246 “What Does Data Sound Like?” is a collaboration between faculty members in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Music. This course introduces students to the field of data sonification, where they learn to translate data into sound, explore its interdisciplinary applications in fields such as Healthcare, Engineering, and the Arts, and gain hands-on experience with tools and techniques for both scientific and creative projects. The second course is a collaboration between Spanish and Hispanic Studies, German Studies, and Civil and Environmental Engineering, ESC/ISC-221 “Humanity-Centered Design: Ecodesign Your Life.” This Fall 2024 course focuses on offering a humanity-centered course which will enable students to broaden their understanding of ‘design’ from multiple disciplines and diverse perspectives with a focus on our lives, experiences, and stories of people, communities, and ecosystems. The third course offered through the Templeton Institute is STS-101 “Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society.” This introduces students to the range of methodologies, epistemologies, topics, and concerns central to the field of STS, including how scientific and technological concepts develop, take root, and evolve; the role of scientists and engineers as technologies interact and intersect with broader societies; and the ethical responsibilities associated with the development of technology. These and other fundamental questions are explored in this introductory survey course, team-taught by four of Union College’s faculty members from English, History, Classics, and Computer Science, with a guest lecturer from Engineering.

This demonstrated team-taught, multidisciplinary approach taken by all of these Templeton Institute courses has had a number of immediate benefits to faculty and students both inside and outside of the classroom: (1) an increased mixing of Engineering, Computer Science, and Humanities disciplines; (2) the development of unique multidisciplinary undergraduate research projects; and (3) a number of collaborative grant proposals for more intentionally integrated and harmonious curricular planning. This paper (if selected) will introduce these three courses in more detail, outline benefits and challenges of this Union College and Templeton Institute model, provide first-hand faculty and student perspectives from the courses, and include a discussion of the benefits of providing differing, complementary, or contrasting perspectives on current issues through the lenses of various disciplines.

Rodak, C. M., & Dosiek, L., & Burkett, A., & Henseler, C., & Chandler, C., & Chattopadhyay, S., & Webb, N. (2025, June), Complementary and Contrasting Perspectives: Collaborative Teaching across Engineering, Computer Science, and the Liberal Arts Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . 10.18260/1-2--56130

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2025 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015