2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 196: An 'Inspiration Kit' for Building a Culture that Fosters Engineering Identity

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

The Mechanical Engineering Department at a private, mid-sized university was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED) grant in July 2017 to support the development of a culture that fosters students’ engineering identities. This culture of “engineering with engineers” was built through a strong connection to industry and through changes in the four essential areas of a shared department vision, faculty, curriculum, and supportive policies.

During the last year of this project, we conducted a thorough audit to review all of our activities over the course of our project, with an eye toward what was particularly impactful for us, the relative levels of ease as seen in retrospect, how educative the activity was to us, and the potential for others to make use of the activity. This audit process helped us identify ten significant endeavors, each of which included multiple activities. These ten endeavors include creating a mission statement to drive culture change, fostering the new culture in retreats, improving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the program, hiring staff to support DEI, teaming to build trust, including students in curriculum design, positioning seniors as professionals, developing innovative teaching, and changing the annual performance review (APR).

To investigate how to share these endeavors effectively, we invited engineering educators, the potential adopters of our endeavors, to an iterative series of virtual co-design workshops. Nearly 70 collegiate educators agreed to participate and each workshop was attended by over 40 co-designers. During each of these workshops, co-designers engaged with the endeavors through listening, viewing, free-writing, and discussion. The idea of an “inspiration kit” emerged. Based on co-designers’ collective feedback, a dedicated website, SURED.org, was built to share these endeavors.

In this paper, we summarize the endeavors in our “inspiration kit” and present key activities and artifacts crucial to each endeavor. We share the process of how we co-designed and constructed SURED.org. It is our hope that sharing our experience and our inspiration kit provides transferrable knowledge other departments may use to improve their programs and change their cultures.

This project was funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) IUSE/PFE: RED grant through NSF.

Authors

Dr. Yen-Lin Han http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2027-803X Seattle University [biography]

Yen-Lin Han is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seattle University. Dr. Han received her BS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from National Tsing-Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, her Ph.D. degree in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and her MS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. Her current research interest focuses on soft robotics in medical devices, for which she recently received the NSF Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) award. She is passionate about Engineering Education and experienced in developing inverted classroom lectures and facilitating students’ learning through authentic engineering problems. She was the Co-PI for the NSF Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments grant awarded to the Mechanical Engineering department at Seattle University to study how the department culture changes can foster students' engineering identity with the long-term goal of increasing the representation of women and minorities in the field of engineering.
Dr. Kathleen E. Cook http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3990-2880 Seattle University [biography]

Kathleen Cook, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Psychology Department at Seattle University. Dr. Cook received her doctorate in Social and Personality Psychology from the University of Washington, with a minor in quantitative methods and emphases in cognitive
Dr. Jennifer A Turns University of Washington [biography]

Dr. Jennifer Turns is a full professor in the Human Centered Design & Engineering Department in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington. Engineering education is her primary area of scholarship, and has been throughout her career. In her work, she currently focuses on the role of reflection in engineering student learning and the relationship of research and practice in engineering education. In recent years, she has been the co-director of the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education (CPREE, funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust), a member of the governing board for the International Research in Engineering Education Network, and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Engineering Education. Dr. Turns has published over 175 journal and conference papers on topics related to engineering education.
Dr. Gregory Mason P.E. zyBooks, A Wiley Brand [biography]

Gregory S. Mason received the B.S.M.E. degree from Gonzaga University in 1983, the M.S.M.E. degree in manufacturing automation from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1984 and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering, specializing in multi-rate digital
Dr. Teodora Rutar Shuman http://orcid.org/https:// 0000-0001-8640-1224 Seattle University [biography]

Professor Teodora Rutar Shuman is the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Seattle University. She is the PI on an NSF-RED grant. Her research also includes electro-mechanical systems for the sustainable processing of microalgae. Her work is published in venues including the Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Education, International Journal of Engineering Education, Transactions of ASME, Chemical Engineering Journal, Bioresource Technology, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, and Combustion and Flame. She is a member of the ASEE, ASME, and the Algae Biomass Organization. Dr. Shuman served as Chair for the ASEE Energy Conversion and Conservation Division.

She received a Dipl. Ing. degree in mechanical engineering from Belgrade University and an M.S.M.E. and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She has held the title of Paccar Professor and is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington.

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