2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

From Mind Full to Mindful: Proposing Mindfulness as a Proactive Strategy for Safeguarding Mental Health in Engineering Education.

Presented at Wellness, Readiness, and Thriving

Engineering students are increasingly reporting struggles with stress and mental health challenges during their undergraduate careers, yet most will only consider seeking support once they have reached a significant state of distress. While university campuses are increasingly establishing mental well-being centers and support structures for students, these efforts are reactionary and require student engagement outside the classroom. Mindfulness, a well-recognized mental health intervention, has shown significant promise as a preventive strategy that fosters a culture that prioritizes well-being in educational settings. This intervention offers many benefits for students beyond mental health, including improved focus, emotional regulation, stress reduction, enhanced cognitive performance, and overall well-being. Despite the growing needs for such interventions, the adoption of mindfulness as a practice in engineering education remains limited. In this paper, we propose mindfulness as a proactive strategy for safeguarding mental health in engineering education. Specifically, we draw from existing literature to dive into the benefits and potential feasibility of incorporating mindfulness into daily engineering curricula. By equipping engineering students to manage stress, we can better promote their overall well-being as students and as emerging career professionals, with the overarching goal to foster healthier engineering communities and workplace environments.

Authors

Vanessa Tran Utah State University [biography]

Vanessa Tran is a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering Education at Utah State University (USU). She earned a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Architecture (UAH) and a Master's in Global Production Engineering and Management from the Vietnamese-German University (VGU) in Vietnam. Her research interest lies in enhancing the well-being of engineering students and educators. She is currently working on an NSF-funded project aimed at promoting student narratives through audio-based methods.
Dr. Cassandra McCall http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0240-432X Utah State University [biography]

Dr. Cassandra McCall is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department at Utah State University (USU). Her research focuses on the intersections of disability, identity formation, and culture and uses anti-ableist approaches to enhance universal access for students with disabilities in STEM, particularly in engineering. At USU, she serves as the Co-Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Transition Services. In 2024, Dr. McCall received a National Science Foundation CAREER grant to identify systemic opportunities for increasing the participation of people with disabilities in engineering. Her award-winning publications have been recognized by leading engineering education research journals at both national and international levels. Dr. McCall has led several workshops promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities and other minoritized groups in STEM. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering with a structural engineering emphasis.
Dr. Stephen Secules http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3149-2306 Florida International University [biography]

Stephen is an Assistant Professor Engineering and Computing Education at Florida International University. He has a prior academic and professional background in engineering, having worked professionally as an acoustical engineer. He has taught a number of courses on design, sociotechnical contexts, education, and learning. He conducts research on equity and culture in engineering education and supports undergraduate and graduate student researchers through the Equity Research Group.
Maimuna Begum Kali http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-1770-7363 Florida International University [biography]

Maimuna Begum Kali is a Ph.D. candidate in the Engineering and Computing Education program at the School of Universal Computing, Construction, and Engineering Education (SUCCEED) at Florida International University (FIU). She earned her B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Kali's research interests center on exploring the experiences of marginalized engineering students, with a particular focus on their hidden identity, mental health, and wellbeing. Her work aims to enhance inclusivity and diversity in engineering education, contributing to the larger body of research in the field.
Gabriel Van Dyke Utah State University [biography]

Gabriel Van Dyke is a Graduate Student and Research Assistant in the Engineering Education Department at Utah State University. His current research interests are engineering culture and applying cognitive load theory in the engineering classroom. He is currently working on an NSF project attempting to improve dissemination of student narratives using innovative audio approaches. Gabe has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Utah State University (USU).

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