Engineering Education in Human Rights and Sustainability: Exploring Students’ Motivations and the Learning Outcomes from an Undergraduate Class at the University of Connecticut
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
- Tagged Divisions
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Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/47279
Paper Authors
Minju Lee University of Connecticut
Minju Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on the impact of ontological security on South Korea-Israel relations. She also explores anti-immigrant/refugee movements in Asia, Asian war victims' memories, the "Comfort Women" issue, social discrimination towards minorities in Asia, and Israel's strategy to avoid blame for its human rights violations. She has published several papers, including "Chŏsunjok as a Marginalized Diaspora in South Korea" (The Taiwanese Political Science Review, 2019) and "Politics of Memory in East Asia and Democratization of Memory in the Post-Cold War Era: Do the Wartime Memories of Jeju, Okinawa, and Nanjing Compete?" (Discourse 201, 2017, written in Korean).
Davis Chacon-Hurtado
University of Connecticut
orcid.org/0000-0001-5722-3545
Davis Chacon-Hurtado, Ph.D., is an Assistant Research Professor at UConn. He co-directs the Engineering for Human Rights Initiative, which is a collaboration between UConn’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the College of Engineering, and the Human Rights Institute, to promote and advance interdisciplinary research in engineering with a clear focus on societal outcomes. Davis is working with several faculty on campus to develop research and curriculum at the intersection of human rights and engineering, such as the one discussed herein. Davis completed his Ph.D. in Transportation and Infrastructure Systems at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 2018. His research interests include transportation equity, human rights, environmental justice, and economic resilience. He grew up in Cusco, Perú, where he obtained his B.S. in civil engineering at the University of San Antonio Abad of Cusco. He also earned an MSCE degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.
Shareen Hertel University of Connecticut
Shareen Hertel, Ph.D., is the Wiktor Osiatyński Chair of Human Rights & Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute. Her research focuses on changes in transnational human rights advocacy, with a focus on labor and economic rights issues. Hertel has served as a consultant to foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies in the United States, Latin America and South Asia. She has conducted fieldwork in factory zones along the US-Mexico border, in Bangladesh’s garment manufacturing export sector, among NGO networks in India, and in the multilateral trade arena. Hertel is editor of The Journal of Human Rights, serves on the editorial boards of Human Rights Review as well as Human Rights and Human Welfare, and is co-editor of the International Studies Intensives book series of Routledge.
Sophia Fenn University of Connecticut
Sophia Fenn is an undergraduate research assistant of the UConn Human Rights Institute and the School of Engineering. As an undergraduate student majoring in Civil and Environmental Engineering, she worked with Davis Chacon-Hurtado to research the environmental impacts of electric vehicles and buses in Latin America. She is currently in Spain to explore the well-being of senior citizens utilizing the public transportation system.
Abstract
How does a Human Rights framework in engineering curriculum affect undergraduate students’ attitudes and opinions of sustainability and human rights? Deepening inequality worldwide, aggravated by climate injustices and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, has increased engineering scholars’ awareness of the necessity of developing a new engineering pedagogy and corresponding ethical framework to prepare an engineering workforce that can perform successfully and efficiently in multicultural and globalized settings. The University of Connecticut (UConn) has pioneered in developing a curriculum that equips engineering students with core concepts and methodological tools necessary to analyze the role of engineering in society, using a Human Rights framework. This paper explores learning outcomes in an existing course within this curriculum (i.e., “Engineering for Human Rights”) by analyzing original exit survey data from enrolled students. Our survey instrument integrated New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) statements to assess variation in perceptions of the usefulness of the course content as it relates to sustainability. The findings of this study have implications and suggestions for designing interdisciplinary curricula that integrate engineering, sustainability, and human rights in engineering education.
Lee, M., & Chacon-Hurtado, D., & Hertel, S., & Fenn, S. (2024, June), Engineering Education in Human Rights and Sustainability: Exploring Students’ Motivations and the Learning Outcomes from an Undergraduate Class at the University of Connecticut Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47279
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