2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In recent years, the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has seen tremendous growth in universities across the United States. The majority of this growth is through the introduction of STS departments and programs into liberal arts divisions. However, a subset of these new STS programs are being integrated in engineering and other STEM-focused institutions, frequently in the form of STS minors. The purpose of this study is to expand on previous work by Neeley, Wiley, and Seabrook (2019), who in “In Search of Integration: Mapping Conceptual Efforts to Apply STS to Engineering Education,” argue that the perspectives and analytical frameworks STS offers are essential for helping engineering students critically understand the process of developing, executing, and implementing a successful major design experience, and for understanding the impact of technological innovation in a holistic sense. An STS minor has the additional advantage of providing students with a recognized credential in this skill set. Thus, in this paper, we ask further: how are STS minors being designed to provide this critical education as well as attract student attention and fulfill the mission of the school?
This working paper considers the design, purpose, and execution of the STS minor in an engineering or other STEM-focused institution. The authors analyze materials such as enrollment numbers, course requirements, program descriptions, marketing materials, and integration with the school’s general curricula to identify patterns across STS minors in STEM schools. We are particularly interested in the skill sets that these minors offer engineering students, how this skill set is imparted through course requirements, and how the program explains the importance of the skill set to engineering practice and post-graduation outcomes. Our goal is to understand the state of current practice, and to build toward recommendations to making STS a valuable complement to an engineering education.