ASEE News


New Grant to Promote Innovation and Sustainability in Engineering Education

New Grant to Promote Innovation and Sustainability in Engineering Education
 
Media Contact:
Rafael Gerena
Chief Marketing & Communications Officer
r.gerena@asee.org
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, D.C. – March 4, 2022
 
The Lemelson Foundation has awarded a one-year $212,000 grant to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) to promote environmentally sustainable practices at engineering-education programs throughout the nation.
 
The funding will support a host of mini grants for an estimated 10 teams of engineering educators who pursue new ways to integrate sustainability into their programs. Applications are being accepted starting today, and interested educators are strongly encouraged to review the program website before applying. The grants align with The Lemelson Foundation's Engineering for One Planet (EOP) initiative which is seeking to create systemic change by establishing environmentally sustainable engineering as a core tenet of engineering education to support the health of the planet and the lives it sustains. The program leverages the EOP Framework, a menu of ABET-aligned student learning outcomes co-developed by dozens of academic, industry, nonprofit and public sector stakeholders and tested through pilot grants.
 
Educators selected by ASEE for the mini grants will work in teams, share ideas and best practices and explore ways to foster curricula that enable engineering students to acquire core sustainability competencies and literacy across diverse engineering disciplines. The goal is to generate innovative, grassroots curricular change approaches that can begin in one engineering classroom, and spread within and across schools. The workshops will provide a supportive and inclusive culture that fosters justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
 
Engineering educators at community and four-year colleges are encouraged to apply for the mini-grants. Winners will be announced in April and the program's three workshops will run from May through October. The program will culminate with faculty teams showcasing their work in an online symposium open to the public in November.
 
For more information, visit https://eop-mgp.asee.org or contact the ASEE project team at eop-mgp@asee.org.
                                                                    
About ASEE
Founded in 1893, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a nonprofit organization of individuals and institutions committed to furthering education in engineering and engineering technology. ASEE develops policies and programs that enhance professional opportunities for engineering faculty members and promotes activities that support increased student enrollments in engineering and engineering technology colleges and universities. ASEE also collaborates with national and international organizations to advance its mission.


About The Lemelson Foundation
Based in Portland, The Lemelson Foundation uses the power of invention to improve lives. Inspired by the belief that invention can solve many of the biggest economic and social challenges of our time, the Foundation helps the next generation of inventors and invention-based businesses to flourish. The Lemelson Foundation was established in the early 1990s by prolific inventor Jerome Lemelson and his wife Dorothy. To date, the Foundation has made grants totaling more than $300 million in support of its mission. For more information, visit http://www.lemelson.org.