We understand that it would be difficult to radically change the structure of the Engineering Studies program overnight. In order to start the changes that we will be proposing, we would need collaboration from the Hanson Center, EGRS faculty and EGRS students. We started this process by interviewing Lafayette College faculty and realized our limitations with our timeline and resources. Our main proposal is to send this report to Lafayette College’s Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM. In the Justice in Acopian proposal, we suggest what changes could be made to the EGRS program. These suggestions would face constraints due to the state of the world as currently there’s a worldwide pandemic. Lafayette College’s budget is lower and the opportunity to hire new professors would be unrealistic at this moment in time. However, our suggestions can be implemented with the current resources the college has; these would be the first steps in moving the Engineering Studies program to be more racially and environmentally focused. Our goal was to get some insight if our assumptions about constraints were true. Additionally, we seeked to ask all the professors we interviewed what actions would be best to implement our ideas. While planning out who we were planning to interview, we aimed to ask professors from different departments who focused on justice within their curriculums. After performing some interviews and finding sources, we understood that our constraints were a reality and justice is possible in the EGRS curriculum.
Our first component for our suggestion focuses heavily on the topic of environmental justice. Professor Cohen, the current head for the Engineering Studies department, describes environmental justice as the following: “At the start, EJ (Environmental Justice) is more an argument about the environment that requires attention to how people live in the world than an environmental argument about nature or the natural.” (2018, p. 4). Keeping the environment in good standing is important, but Professor Cohen is focusing more towards the human aspect with the environment. Unfortunately, there are poorer communities who have seen environmental disasters simply because their concerns are not listened to. For example, the Flint, Michigan water crisis made it clear that the blacker communities in Michigan were most affected. Learning these facts in the Engineering Studies program hasn’t been required though. According to Professor Armstrong, an environmental studies professor, Professor Cohen has collaborated with the Environmental Studies program in a teaching capacity. Professor Cohen taught an Environmental Justice course during the 2017 Spring semester (A.Armstrong, Personal Conversation, October 25, 2020). In Armstrong’s three plus years at Lafayette College, she hasn’t seen many cross listed courses between both programs, but there have been clear contributions from Professor Cohen. This shows us that there may be a deeper issue at play; Engineering Studies appears to be promoting their desire for environmental justice, but hasn’t been able to create more meaningful connections in the required courses. These connections are necessary for the EGRS major to live up to its own standards. Professor Cohen himself says, “Given the degree to which engineering work is implicated and embedded in ecosystem health, lacing together engineering and environmental ethics is not only helpful but necessary.” (2018, p. 21). The focus on environmental justice within the curriculum should be a priority as we are in a climate change crisis currently. Injustices are plaguing less privileged communities within the pandemic and connections like that shouldn’t be left for EGRS students to figure out on their own.
We wanted to create more classes within the EGRS major related to environmental and social justice by collaborating with professors within the environmental studies program and other engineering professors. However, while talking to Professor Armstrong, she told us that their program also lacked funding. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the program went from being able to hire a new tenure-track professor to having to wait at least three years in order to get to that point (A.Armstrong, Personal Conversation, October 25. 2020). This revelation allowed us to reflect and reassess our plan to accommodate this new information, but to also keep the root of the goal; more collaboration between our programs to create more humanitarian engineers. Our updated suggestion is that the Engineering Studies department add more cross listed courses with Environmental Studies and are taught by two professors, one from each department or focus (whichever is more feasible). Originally, our main suggestion was to create more classes for the Engineering Studies program related to racial and environmental justice. In order to do this, we thought of collaborating with professors within the environmental studies program and other engineering professors.
However, we will have to work with more constraints within the cross listed course idea. Lafayette College currently requires that at least 30 students be enrolled in the course in order for both professors to get half a credit for the year. For some context, professors need at least 5 teaching credits every year. Professors are already teaching several courses, so adding a course with 30 individuals would be unrealistic and unfair to them. This would mean that they would have more student material to grade over what they have already. Trying to create a discussion-based, interdisciplinary course that challenges students with potential essays, projects and other assessments would be a tall task with such a large roster. This appears to be one of the main reasons this cross list model isn’t being used as often as it might be if the constraints weren’t as difficult to accomplish. While we interviewed Professor Kimber, a math professor and major contributor to the Hanson Center, she mentioned that it is possible to make smaller, cross listed courses, as long as they met the requirements of the Common Course of Study. The Common Course of Study is Lafayette College’s catalogue of requirements that students must complete throughout their time at the school (C.Kimber, Personal Conversation, November 5. 2020). If this suggestion was to go through, a cross listed course would need to include an attribute that students need for graduation. This cross listed course could focus on a worldview of engineering and environmental justice, allowing EGRS students to ask what can be done for the most environmentally vulnerable communities. Cohen agrees with this, stating, “Thus, a future direction for engineering and EJ is to include the necessary attention to environmental impacts while broadening the purview to include questions about equitable participation and beyond.” (2018, p. 22). Engineering Studies students must understand local communities to find ways and potential implementations of technologies to mitigate the impact on these communities. However, the starting point is recognizing that environmental injustice exists and affects marginalized communities more than more privileged communities. This could be connected to the history of technology and how it has affected the environmental injustices the world is seeing today. When we look at the corporate production process, we can see a clear connection between technology and how it unfairly impacts more vulnerable communities. If the Engineering Studies directly taught this information throughout the program’s four year track, then students would have stronger connections with how the environment affects people.
We spoke with Professor Rossmann, who has been involved in the Engineering Studies program for quite some time. Her input has been useful as she started all the engineering cross listed programs so she knows the effectiveness of this program and potential areas for improvement. Professor Rossman has taught for fifteen years and has been around and involved in the latest changes towards the Engineering Studies program. Professor Rossman has proposed a Race and Technology course that would resemble a unit that EGRS majors encountered during their Senior Capstone course. This course would tackle the idea about technology and the bias that is built into them. Race and Technology will also ask who creates this technology and the negative effects technology have on vulnerable communities, specifically communities of color (J. Rossmann, Personal Conversation, October 25, 2020). This class will fall under the Engineering Studies program and we believe it could be a useful class that could be required for students in the major.
In order to implement such a course, we suggest that the Hanson Center talk to the Provost’s Office and Professor Sabatino, who is the chair of the Faculty Academic Policy. During one of the interviews, we were told that these two stakeholders would help us understand more about the cross list program. Both are gatekeepers who would allow us to carry on with creating an opportunity where Engineering Studies, Environmental Studies, and potentially Africana Studies could create more cross listed courses that anyone from each major could take. However, for Engineering Studies, we suggest that these cross listed courses should be required for anyone who is in the major. This would ensure the most effectiveness within our modified Engineering Studies program. If Engineering Studies wants to create a program focused on environmental and environmental justice, then there should be required courses that integrate these perspectives directly and not passively. This approach would also respect the amount of time, money, and effort that the school and professors would be willing to put into such courses.
We believe that justice in engineering is an ethical obligation to society as the Engineering Studies program is seeking to create adults who listen and try to understand their surroundings. Cohen says this best with the following quote: “Incorporating further attention to EJ in those studies can inculcate a next generation of scholarship and encourage further emphases in engineering ethics to make matters of environmental injustice core elements of engineering education, practice, and identity.” (2018, p. 23). The same principle can be applied to social justice as all types of justices connect to one another and should be valued equally in a potential EGRS justice reform. In order to bring more attention to justice within Acopian’s Engineering Studies program, these courses and experiences must penetrate throughout the curriculum; students should be able to say that they’ve interacted with justice at least a few times by the time they reach their capstone course.
Our second suggestion would be to integrate racial and environmental justice concepts as crucial parts of the existing Engineering Studies curricula. The second suggestion could serve as an alternative to the first suggestion if there are issues implementing cross listing courses. Additionally, we see this suggestion being implemented before any new classes as this suggestion is more feasible. This idea would be considered less invasive but would also accomplish the same goal of promoting racial and environmental justice. This idea would involve that Hanson Center asks that existing Engineering Studies courses make more efforts to incorporate ideas of justice in a meaningful manner. In order to do this, we believe that these classes should incorporate the cake philosophy discussed during the social context portion of this report. In one of Professor Donna Riley’s works, Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace: Strategies for Pedagogical, Curricular, and Institutional Reform, she discusses the disconnect between engineering and the humanities on a departmental level. To be more specific, Riley states, “…Even where these courses connect directly to science, technology, and engineering, they are typically disassociated with “engineering” courses—institutionally (e.g., departmentally), in terms of curriculum requirements, and in students’ own imaginations (where H&SS (Humanities and Social Science) electives are often understood to be a “break” from the rigors of their core engineering courses).” (2015, p.5). Engineering Studies does seem disconnected from social and environmental issues besides its required capstone offering and open social science and science offerings. This could be an issue as some of these majors may never take any course related to environmental justice and how crucial of a role that engineers have in this area. Racial justice has also been neglected by the major up until the capstone, leaving it as a requirement in the humanities and social science departments. Not only that, but environmentally justice is heavily intertwined with racial justice. Ignoring justice brews a concoction that will create a focus around technology and not the other crucial components of humanistic engineering.
We also suggest that EGRS could be included in ES 101 by adding a module and we would be benefiting students and solidifying the engineering studies major’s identity and presence in Acopian. ES 101 is a required engineering introductory course that all Lafayette College engineering majors must take. However, we’ve realized that this course doesn’t cover every engineering major fairly. For example, ES 101 didn’t promote it besides a lunch event that was optional and limited. Including a race and technology module would expose more students to the major and let them get a taste of what they could learn as an engineering studies major. Some engineering studies majors simply didn’t realize the major existed until they went to an EGRS focused event. Unfortunately, some other engineering majors tend to devalue Engineering Studies importance within Lafayette College. We’ve heard instances where Engineering Studies is called “fake engineering”, but that isn’t the case. This program connects the liberal arts more with engineering and including justice could only further that trend. In Professor Riley’s experience, she found that her students grew by incorporating more social justice themes in their courses, allowing there to be a broader conversation about her engineering program as a whole. Riley states, “Taken as a whole, the reflective engagement of students in thermodynamics produced gains in critical thinking and reflective action, along with resistance from some students policing disciplinary boundaries of the course, opening space for motivating conversations about the syllabus in the context of the larger engineering program.” (2015, p. 8). While Riley did face some challenges in challenging traditional perceptions about engineering and justice being different areas of focus, she was able to talk to students about the real world implications of the class. The Engineering Studies program can do the same from engineer’s first semesters, challenging their mindsets and building a foundation that includes an interdisciplinary framework from the start of their Laf experiences.
The ES 101 proposal could introduce a new wave of awareness of the engineering studies program, allowing students to better understand what the major entails and would offer them. In order to accomplish this, we ask that the Hanson Center communicate with the Engineering Program head Scott Hummel. In this conversation, we would like to see two sections of the same EGRS lecture throughout the semester. The ES 101 could be named Engineering and Justice, potentially holding a description mentioning the building of humanitarian engineers. The course could have discussions about technology and how the justice framework can be applied to several engineering disciplines. This course would be incredibly important in allowing more Engineers to get the EGRS experience in a small dose. Engineering Studies does not have its own showcase during such a crucial class; this is the first experience engineers have at Laf. This would be the first step in including the EGRS program within the ES 101 modules, showing students how engineering and justice can be connected to one another and can be applied to technical knowledge. Including the Engineering Studies program in some capacity would promote the awareness and show the passion of the EGRS faculty. EGRS is a crucial part of Acopian, often bragged about by Lafayette College, but it turns out to be one of the smallest and mislabeled majors in the college. This gesture alone could help Engineering Studies become a better known program amongst the engineering community at Lafayette.
We expect some setbacks to teaching a humanist perspective along with engineering. Professor Donna Riley, faced resistance when she tried to implement environmental justice topics in her thermodynamics class. In her experience, she had an instance where a student told her that her talking about the social implications of thermodynamics wasn’t what she signed up for the course for. Riley said, “I was taken aback when students began in 2010 – in the ninth and tenth offerings of the course — to state that climate change discussions did not belong in a course on thermodynamics.” (2015, p.8). We may expect some questioning and in order to address that, it would be best to bring up the Engineering Studies program’s website page. The EGRS website’s focus on being able to meet society’s complex challenges will require conversations about difficult topics. Resistance should be expected and also praised as this allows there to be a deeper conversation as to why these topics are being discussed. In Professor Riley’s case, this allowed her to reflect and come back with a deeper conversation, better connecting environmental matters to thermodynamics. Engineering Studies professors can learn about their teaching and their students in these types of experiences, being able to adapt their lessons better to address concerns and challenges. Today’s world presents challenges that will require socially and environmentally aware engineers and discussions about complex social and environmental issues will only benefit them for the future. The Bachelors of Arts in Engineering helps with that, but that shouldn’t be the crutch of the program; there are fundamental changes and mindsets that can only make this major better than it is currently.
The outcomes of such a program are quite beneficial to engineering students as well. During our interview with Professor Kimber, she has indicated that she has tried to introduce more social justice topics within her Math and Social Justice course. She told us that she was able to teach students the technical aspect of the course and was able to apply this knowledge in social justice issues. This course uses the Math 104 framework to teach students who won’t be taking many technical classes. If a similar framework could be applied to the Engineering Studies program’s curriculum, it could be quite effective. There are clear examples of this framework thriving in Engineering programs, more specifically at the Colorado School of Mines. Lucena and Leydens brought up the effectiveness of mixing social justice within engineering in a meaningful way. They focused on a student’s perspective and they said, “[Colorado School of] Mines taught me how to excel with the technical, but this course taught me about social work. With this course, I can actually be the engineer I wanted to be when I enrolled at Mines. It is ironic how a social course taught me more about what being an engineer is really about than my technical courses—especially in an engineering school—but I will embrace this irony and do my best to bring social justice and engineering together…” (2018, p. 51). Colorado School of Mines students received this experience because the faculty decided to incorporate this material into a traditionally single-laned course. EGRS professors should take a new step and challenge themselves to make stronger connections in justice. They are helping form the next generation of Engineering leaders; they can help fuel a stronger sense of justice in this generation’s engineers. Engineers will play a role in this society, but instead of being problematic, Engineering Studies students could initiate conversations about justice in their workplaces, setting up the foundation for future long-term change in the Engineering culture.
Next page: Conclusion