In this paper we present early results and ongoing work in re-situating the faculty/staff/student community, and curricular/co-curricular student learning experience in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. Our work is centered on creation of a holistic, inclusive, and professionally-based learning environment for our students. We have a keen focus on addressing social inequality through implementing engineering educational systems and interpersonal interactions that are professionally and personally life-affirming for all of our constituents. We are working to promote change through establishing a culture of inclusion and a shift in student learning environments from highly sequestered activities to more realistic and consequential work that is inspired by that of the actual engineering workplace. These efforts require an important and concurrent shift in unit culture (e.g. values, norms, policies and procedures).
In this second year of our project our work is especially focused on: (1) implementation of curricular redesign in three second-year studio classes to include more realistic, consequential work via the pedagogy of model-eliciting activities (as a first step towards eventual redesign of 9 middle-years courses); (2) advancing faculty and staff capacity to engage issues of equity and inclusivity under the leadership and efforts of a new faculty/staff working group; (3) initial implementation of student professional development ‘Pods’, self-forming student teams structured to be highly inclusive and where students can convene to better understand their curricular and co-curricular experiences in relation to future professional practice; and (4) implementing a system for change in faculty/staff personalized position (job) descriptions in order to recognize less-traditional work that values and advances diversity, equity, inclusion, student success, and school community.
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation program Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) that is aligned with the NSF Engineering (ENG) Directorate’s multi-year initiative, the Professional Formation of Engineers, to create and support an innovative and inclusive engineering profession for the 21st Century.
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