Research Initiation Grant: Social Justice in Engineering with a Focus on Control Systems

Colorado School Of Mines, Golden CO

Investigators

Abstract

Technical description: The focus of this research initiation grant is engineering and social justice, specifically within a control systems course required for electrical and mechanical engineering students at the Colorado School of Mines. Using a mixed-methods approach, the team will begin by assessing the state of social justice awareness of the junior- and senior-level students entering the class, which will provide information about its presence elsewhere in the curriculum. A survey offered to all enrolled students will be followed by focus groups and semi-structured interviews for selected students. This team will then evaluate the impacts of social justice interventions that are implemented in this course. To the best of the team?s knowledge, this research will represent the first time social justice is framed specifically within control systems engineering, which will help to expand understanding of social justice as it relates to this specific engineering discipline. Second, this research will collect baseline information of these electrical and mechanical engineering students? prior experiences with engineering and social justice. This baseline information will provide important background for future curricular changes required to teach social justice. Finally, this research includes an evaluation of the impact of social justice interventions within a required control systems course, contributing to the engineering education research community by evaluating the effectiveness of the pedagogical techniques used. Non-technical explanation of significance/importance: The concept of social justice defies a concise, universal definition, but is fundamentally about human rights. The vision implied in social justice is that people and communities have the right to equality, to health, to dignity, and to opportunities. Social justice is closely tied to care for the natural environment because equitable access to clean water, clean air, and Earth?s resources is an important element of human rights. Social justice is a key element of the "sustainability triangle," with economics and the environment forming the other two axes. However, whereas economics has long been considered an important part of engineering education and the environment has gained significant ground in recent years, social justice receives very little attention within typical engineering curricula. Therefore, most engineering graduates are unprepared to perform thorough assessments of the social justice implications of their engineering decisions and designs. The proposed research will lay the groundwork to remedy this shortcoming. The approximately 50 students enrolled in the intervention courses during fall 2014 and fall 2015 will learn social justice concepts and will therefore be better equipped to consider social impacts of their engineering decisions. Ideally, these students will become ambassadors for social justice within their future careers. The team will share its intervention materials with the control systems and social justice teaching communities, thereby increasing the opportunity for additional students to learn about this important area. The research activities will also complement those of CSM?s Humanitarian Engineering minor. In addition, ethnographic research suggests that women and other minority engineering students disproportionately place a high priority on the human side of engineering, so targeted instruction in social justice may impact their motivation to continue in the profession beyond graduation.