2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Community Perspectives on Chemical Engineering Education

Presented at Chemical Engineering Division (ChED) Technical Session 2: Community Retrospectives

This study investigated faculty perceptions and needs salient to the future of the journal Chemical Engineering Education (CEE). Specifically, we sought to understand (a) how faculty use CEE and what they value about it; (b) barriers and improvements to publication and use; and (c) perceptions of the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consideration Requirement,” which began in 2021. To guide this work, we posed the following research questions: 1) What is the perceived utility of CEE? How do faculty use CEE? What do they value about the journal?; 2) What are the opportunities for improvement? What barriers preclude publication and use?; and 3) What are the perceptions of the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consideration Requirement,” which began in 2021? We also analyzed the data for an overarching question: What values, attitudes, and beliefs do chemical engineering faculty express about practitioner-focused and discipline-specific education research publications? We conducted focus group interviews representing different CEE constituents (e.g., those who read but have not published, those who have published often) and represented varied perspectives (professional track, tenure track, tenured, varied institution types). As a first step, we report the analysis of a set of five focus groups, including 12 faculty members total. We found that many faculty appreciated the practical nature of the journal for its capacity to offer inspiration for teaching and widespread impact. When asked about the DEI requirement, some faculty raised concerns, being careful to express that they valued DEI, but showing uncertainty about how, for instance, a description of a laboratory experiment could meet this requirement. This discussion suggests a need to support authors publishing under the new DEI guidelines. In this paper, we summarize some of the initial findings from this work and also seek to continue and broaden the conversation with the community through presentation in the ASEE Chemical Engineering Division.

Authors

Milo D. Koretsky Tufts University [biography]

Milo Koretsky is the McDonnell Family Bridge Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and in the Department of Education at Tufts University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in chemical engineering.
Dr. Lisa G. Bullard, P.E. North Carolina State University, Raleigh [biography]

Dr. Lisa Bullard is an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. She obtained her BS in Chemical Engineering at NC State in 1986 and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. A faculty member at NC State since 2000, Dr. Bullard’s research interests lie in the area of educational scholarship, including teaching and advising effectiveness, academic integrity, chemical engineering instruction, and organizational culture.
Prof. Joshua A. Enszer University of Delaware [biography]

Dr. Joshua Enszer is an associate professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. He has taught core and elective courses across the curriculum, from introduction to engineering science and material and energy balances to
Dr. Allison Godwin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0741-3356 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a 2016 National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2021 Journal of Civil Engineering Education Best Technical Paper, the 2021 Chemical Engineering Education William H. Corcoran Award, the 2022 American Educational Research Association Education in the Professions (Division I) 2021-2022 Outstanding Research Publication Award, and the 2023 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Research.
Dr. Vanessa Svihla http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4342-6178 University of Texas, Austin [biography]

Dr. Vanessa Svihla is a learning scientist and associate professor at the University of New Mexico in the Organization, Information and Learning Sciences program and in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department.
Dr. Sindia M. Rivera-Jiménez University of Florida [biography]

Dr. Rivera-Jiménez is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering Education (EED) and an affiliate faculty to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on understanding the role of engineering communities while enacting their agency in participatory and transformational change. She is particularly interested in broadening the participation of minoritized communities by studying the role of professional development in shaping organizational cultures. As an education practitioner, she also looks at evidence-based practices to incorporate social responsibility skills and collaborative and inclusive teams into the curriculum. Dr. Rivera-Jiménez graduated from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez with a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. She earned an NSF RIEF award recognizing her effort in transitioning from a meaningful ten-year teaching faculty career into engineering education research. Before her current role, she taught STEM courses at diverse institutions such as HSI, community college, and R1 public university.

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