2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As trained professionals, engineers have well recognized areas of expertise. Such expertise often translates into expert power in their professional practice. Expert power can be defined as the ability to influence other people, decision-making, and project planning and/or project outcomes. Moreover, engineers typically work with a wide variety of stakeholders that have differing levels of social or institutional power and often conflicting views (e.g., business leaders, community members, policy makers). This adds another layer of power dynamics engineers must navigate. In preparing students for professional contexts, there are increasing calls to develop human-centered design skills and perspectives that have the potential to take into consideration designers' social power and the institutional power they face, and seek a deeper integration of the views of stakeholders. However, the social and institutional power engineers must navigate has received little explicit attention in engineering education. This work attempts to better integrate theories of power from sociology and related areas into a senior capstone course.

Three major pedagogical strategies were used to incorporate the topic of power into the course. First, we draw on the work of British Sociologists Steven Lukes (1974) and his three faces of power framework (i.e. power over decision making, turning topics into non-decisions, and setting an ideological agenda). Students read Lukes, and had a class discussion. The instructors translated each of these “faces” of power into engineering design scenarios and had students discuss how they would respond to each. Second, a case study focused on the engineering failures that magnified the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Two readings covered: (1) the culmination of many decisions that led to segregation and inequity in New Orleans, and (2) the engineering failures of the levy system which left historically black neighborhoods at risk. Class discussion began by acknowledging the sensitivity of these topics. The discussion focused on the convergence of the articles. This topic relates to power imbalances in both political institutions and engineering decisions. Third, we asked students to select a scenario either local to the university or their hometowns that centered on public health concerns related to infrastructure or industry. Scenarios selected included historical sites, such as the Love Canal, to modern issues, such as the Buffalo Bills new stadium. Other problems included lead water pipes in their highschool. We asked students to identify all potential stakeholders for their problem and select three stakeholders to analyze their power to address the problem. Lastly, the students provided solution suggestions that addressed stakeholders concerns and differences in power.

After presenting the strategies, the three instructors share their reflections on successes and challenges of integrating discussions of power into students' professional training. We will draw out several implications including: 1) possible avenues for greater integration of the topic into capstone classes and potential transferability to other engineering classes; 2) how the topic of power relates to issues of equity, privilege, and empathy with stakeholders or users; 3) how power affects interactions with peers on teams and in the class more broadly.