2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This is an auto-ethnographic account of encounters with engineering students and engineers at a technical university who has tried to diversify engineering education and practice via the merge between engineering and social science, humanities and arts. In a recent decade, as a way to cultivate future creative innovators/engineers with global competence, the incorporation of non-technical elements such as social sciences, humanities, arts and design into core engineering curricula has never been more emphasized in the Korean national context.

In late 2000s, the South Korean government set priorities in science and technology policy to cultivate global leaders at the university level in the fields of information and communication technologies. The goal was clear to educate the undergraduate and graduate students to lead global markets in such fields rather than catching up with the latest technologies. The government funded two top-notches to establish an engineering program with expectation that convergent, student-oriented learnign environment in engineering would generate global IT leaders. In early 2010s, when a new engineering program opened, it received “doubts,” “skepticism,” or “envious ridicule” both from inside and outside of the university. However, about a decade later one can say that a paradigm shift has taken place and hybridity has become a new currency in engineering education to prepare for the era of highly intelligent and connected world.

The paper presents a case study of how this sort of experimentally innovative community is formed through collaborative efforts between engineers, the industry, the government, and others. As much as innovative forms of pedagogies are needed in engineering education, it has been rough and fiery processes to define, configure, refigure, and reformulate hybrid pedagogies among participating actors. Drawing on about a decade-long years of experience in hybrid forms of teaching and learning environment in an engineering department, the paper follows the trajectory of a contested epistemic and pragmatic space, where the topography of engineering practice and education must be reconfigured and remapped. Combining documentary analysis, participation, and in-depth dialogue with engineers, I provide inside and reflexive accounts of what aspects of engineering have been silenced and highlighted in the process of shaping hybrid pedagogies and engineering by reflecting on and assessing the nature of “hybridity,” “innovation,” and “design” in engineering education.