Indianapolis, Indiana
June 15, 2014
June 15, 2014
June 18, 2014
2153-5965
Multidisciplinary Engineering and Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
14
24.807.1 - 24.807.14
10.18260/1-2--20699
https://peer.asee.org/20699
560
Jenn Stroud Rossmann is Associate Professor and Department Head of Mechanical Engineering at Lafayette College. She earned her BS in mechanical engineering and the PhD in applied physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Lafayette, she was a faculty member at Harvey Mudd College. Her scholarly interests include the fluid dynamics of blood in vessels affected by atherosclerosis and aneurysm, the cultural history of engineering, and the aerodynamics of sports projectiles. She is the co-author of an innovative textbook integrating solid and fluid mechanics for undergraduates.
Dr. Kristen Sanford Bernhardt is Chair of the Engineering Studies Program and Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lafayette College. Her expertise is in sustainable civil infrastructure management and transportation systems. She teaches a variety of courses including sustainability of built systems, transportation systems, transportation planning, civil infrastructure management, and Lafayette’s introductory first year engineering course. Dr. Sanford Bernhardt serves on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Committees on Education and Faculty Development and the Transportation Research Board Committee on Education and Training. She previously has served as Vice-Chair of the ASCE Infrastructure Systems Committee, Chair of the ASEE’s Civil Engineering Division, and a member of the Transportation Research Board committees on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing, Asset Management, and Emerging Technology for Design and Construction. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University, and her B.S.E. from Duke University.
Introducing Engineering as a Socio-technical SystemThis paper describes efforts to introduce engineering as an inherently socio-technical process toengineering and other students at a liberal arts college. Our efforts comprise an attempt to presentengineering as a component of the liberal arts in that it shares creative, innovative, and culturalelements with other liberal arts disciplines, and it is also a mode of inquiry and buildingunderstanding the world. Our approach follows from the view that while engineering as apractice is widely understood to include skills in calculation, design, technical dexterity,communication, imagination, values, and social relations, introductory coursework often focuseson engineering in isolation from the larger socio-technical context that holds those skills together.A focus for these efforts is the piloting of a course introducing first-year students to engineeringas a socio-technical mode of engagement. The new course, taught within the structure of arequired “Introduction to Engineering” framework, develops a socio-technical concept oftechnology as a system and engineering as a multi-faceted (not strictly technical) activity. Thisfollows from innovations in engineering pedagogy from decades of STS scholarship, and fromthe emerging field of engineering studies scholarship. This paper will discuss the unique featuresof this effort at a small liberal arts college. The authors of the paper are associated with theEngineering Studies Program on campus. They include the faculty member teaching the course,a faculty colleague who has been collaborating specifically on the integration of the socio-technical content, and the Program chair. The paper outlines the integration between engineeringand the liberal arts on campus, describes recent curricular changes that can facilitate the infusionof the socio-technical perspective throughout a student’s career, explains the model for theIntroduction to Engineering course, details that structure of the pilot course, and assesses theeffectiveness of the pilot course.
Cohen, B., & Rossmann, J. S., & Sanford Bernhardt, K. L. (2014, June), Introducing Engineering as a Socio-technical Process Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--20699
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