In our rapidly changing world, the Engineering Studies major will need reform sooner rather than later. We are at a crucial point in history; we are seeing the impacts technology has on society, the environment and the economy more than ever before with the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has set restrictions in how we interact, but have also given us the opportunity to see injustices unfold in front of our eyes. In our courses, we have discussed the impact of the Black Lives Matter and how engineers and the history of technology has contributed to the issue. The EGRS major itself is in a crucial period of change as the pandemic has affected how the school will fund and create future courses going forward. The Engineering Studies identity has different potential paths, but more importantly, the major isn’t accomplishing its own goals. The courses required for EGRS haven’t changed in over thirteen years now, but that must change; complacency should be mitigated and have no place in a program dedicated to creating engineers who will serve to listen to today’s problems. In order to ensure that engineering studies majors don’t make the mistakes our predecessors made, they must understand the engineering history and why things are the way they are. There is a disconnect between engineering and society that remains prevalent in our society, but this can be addressed through educational reform. Engineering Studies conforms to this disconnection; the humanities, environment and engineering are not discussed together until the program’s final course. This last minute addition makes it difficult to build reflective students long-term; one course can be impactful, but it should not be the only course promoting these ideals. The Capstone course represents the program as a whole, but the other classes in the program don’t reflect the same way it does. Including these experiences allows students to help their workplaces become more justice-aware places, speaking up for issues that wouldn’t have been talked about.
This proposal required thinking within the box as there were several constraints we couldn’t control in such a limited time. The college appears to be undergoing financial hardship and the effect can already be felt within departments. However, that isn’t to say that nothing can be done to change the EGRS major; we must work with what we currently have. We have professors who are willing and have listened to including more justice in their courses. In our conversation with Professor Kimber, she told us that The Hanson Center is currently assisting professors in bringing more ways to bring in racial justice into their courses. After the coverage of the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other innocent black folks and protest against racism, professors came to consult the center. The Hanson Center is currently at capacity in assisting professors, but the better news is that Professor Cohen is involved in this group, learning about potential ways to include justice in his own courses. This is good to hear as Professor Cohen is the head of the Engineering Studies program, so it can be expected that the major will at least start discussions on change within the program with other faculty members involved.
However, there are still constraints currently as there won’t be any immediate changes happening due to the Pandemic. As stated before, we hope that the Hanson Center will start conversations with key figures who can help change the EGRS program in the long term. Understanding these constraints, any suggestion that involves the school spending money or hiring another professor for the short-term is considered not feasible. These are good long-term suggestions that were made but the purpose of the report was focused on initiatives that could happen under current circumstances. The suggestions are realistic and could be implemented with the right support and effort put into the conversations and eventual creation of a mock curriculum that can be eventually executed. We have confidence in the Hanson Center to ensure these ideas can become a reality in one way or another, benefiting the Engineering Studies major and the other majors that would be willing to collaborate with the major. In the conversations we had with professors from other majors, we’ve seen that other studies-based majors are also struggling with similar issues as the EGRS program. There appears to be a desire throughout the campus to involve more conversations about race at Laf, but we are still in the early stages and cannot determine what will happen next. While we talked to a few professors at Laf, we don’t know what other perspectives we may have missed. The purpose of the report is to show our findings about Lafayette’s EGRS program to gather the perspectives that can improve and change the major.
Going forward, we would ask the Hanson Center and future Engineering Studies majors to take on the cause, slowly moving these ideas forward and creating real long-term change. This will be difficult to measure, but we believe that conversations and action regarding the involvement of the environment and race in the EGRS program will be a step in the right direction. Lucena and Leyden noted the following about environmental justice: “As the environmental justice movement raised concerns about the inequitable distribution of environmental harms by race and by class, I saw no recognition, let alone a thoughtful response, from the engineering community. This book gives me hope that today’s engineering students will have a different experience, where relevant justice concerns are taken up as part and parcel of what engineers do.” (2018, p. xviii). Our group used this book as a significant reference towards creating our suggestions for the program. We are suggesting a program that will allow EGRS students to have the justice perspective in their toolset. Justice in our curriculum will not be a fad and it will most likely be relevant for decades to come. The suggestions that were proposed were based on the current constraints that the Engineering Studies class of 2021 had during the Capstone course. Due to the virtual nature of the semester, it was difficult to condense the suggestions from big ideas to smaller, more realistic changes. Ideally, future classes will have less constraints and be able to push this project forward, keeping the essence of the changes towards the program but refining it to how they see fit. Changing the Engineering Studies program will be a difficult task to accomplish, but won’t be impossible.
In future adaptations of Justice in Acopian, there could be more collaboration with other projects in the Engineering Studies Capstone course. There were other projects that aligned with this one, all promoting justice and inclusion towards the curriculum in their own ways. For example, there is the Disability Studies capstone group who were proposing similar changes in the curriculum. The Disability Studies group proposed teaching about disabilities and discussed how they can include accommodations for this group using engineering design. Future Justice in Acopian iterations could partner or combine with Disability Studies to introduce an even bigger initiative. This could serve to be the future framework that Engineering Studies work with, seeking to understand these communities better and using their technical knowledge to aid them towards equality. Engineering Studies students would be socially and environmentally aware of potential issues in their sector by applying this mindset. Every proposal, whether it be from our group or from the Disabilities Studies group, are aiming to create more inclusivity in our program. We hope the major will eventually be allies to justice issues and be a significant bridge between the technical, environmental and social.
These changes to the Engineering Studies program will require several iterations to create a framework that students and faculty can thrive in and promote justice throughout the curriculum. As established before, there currently are conversations between the Hanson Center and Professor Cohen on including more justice in existing classes. We hope that future groups will eventually help create curriculums for existing EGRS classes and potentially future ones as well. This is a plan that is easier said than done; the plan requires the environmental studies department, social science departments and most importantly the engineering studies department itself to contribute the significant changes that we are proposing. More developments in the field of justice may occur and we hope that our current faculty and students can incorporate more of them in future iterations of this project. When the curriculum change comes to fruition, this may be one of the biggest seen in the engineering studies program’s modern history. We expect several conversations between professors and students, figuring out what the students want and what hasn’t been considered in this large and broad conversation about reform. The EGRS program has been important in the history of Humanitarian Engineering and once again, the program must address the current issues our society faces with technology and the impending threat of climate change. Engineers have a role in these conversations; technology must not be in the middle, but the passion for more justice and equity in our society.
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