2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Fostering Effective & Enduring Advocacy in STEM: Exploring the Role of Community Through a Collaborative Autoethnography

Presented at Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division (LEES) Technical Session 9: Collaboration and Community

In this paper, we explore the impacts of a pilot course entitled “Effective and Enduring Advocacy: Leading with Compassion in STEM” on both students and instructors through collaborative autoethnography. The pilot course was developed to augment the technical, problem-solving mindset integral to engineering curricula and identity with tools grounded in critical consciousness and compassion, recognizing the crucial role of community-centered advocacy work in creating positive change both in our STEM-focused institutions and the world beyond. Instructors acted as guides while students used self-reflection and dialogue (peer-to-peer and student-to-teacher) grounded in critical pedagogy to discover how their unique identity, experiences, and positionality could support them in actively transforming our world in ways they believe will make life, love, and liberation more possible.

We have chosen to report the outcomes from the first iteration of the course through collaborative autoethnography, connecting the individual and shared experiences of both students and teachers to the broader challenges and opportunities which this course aimed to address. The present research team is therefore comprised of the pilot program’s organizers and instructors (two graduate students at the host institution and two external professors from different fields) as well as several program participants (including a junior undergraduate student, three graduate students, and a postdoctoral researcher). We embrace this participatory research approach as a natural extension of the self-reflective, dialogical, and student-centered course structure.

The research team has collectively identified that the role of community was vital in shaping positive and effective course experiences for both students and instructors. We explore how creating and maintaining a community-supported space for self-reflection, peer-to-peer learning, and instructor-student interactions promoted effective, enduring, and diverse advocacy actions. This collective inquiry is especially significant due to the context of our STEM-focused institution, allowing us to probe opportunities to augment and evolve STEM curricula and support a stronger sense of self, belonging, and agency for students and teachers alike. In addition to this broader context, the stories, experiences, perspectives, and connections documented in this autoethnography will inform future iterations of this course as it grows into a multi-institutional program, continuing to support and unite STEM students throughout their advocacy journeys.

Authors

Dr. Jacqueline Rose Tawney California Institute of Technology
Dr. Morgan L Hooper University of Toronto [biography]

After completing her PhD at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), Morgan Hooper is now an Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) at the University of Toronto. There, her teaching focuses on building community within hands-on Engineering Design courses and beyond. She encourages students to engage with multi-faceted, trans-disciplinary engineering projects to learn the complex ways in which engineering, design, and community interact.
Dr. Harly Ramsey http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3809-9312 University of Southern California [biography]

Harly Ramsey is an Associate Professor of Technical Communication Practice and the Associate Director of the Engineering in Society Program at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in English, and her training in narrative theory, cultural studies, and rhetoric informs her teaching. Her teaching and scholarship foreground the concept of the citizen engineer and the formation of professional engineering identities. She developed and continues to work on Engineering Moment, a classroom-based podcast project about the social role of engineering, and Vision Venture, a co-curricular interactive video series exploring students’ engineering identities, agency, and purpose after graduation.
Maria Jose Azcona Baez California Institute of Technology
Meredith Hooper California Institute of Technology [biography]

Meredith Hooper is an Aeronautics PhD student studying under Professor Mory Gharib and Co-Director of the Caltech Project for Effective Teaching (CPET). Her PhD research uses a combination of machine learning and experimental techniques to investigate optimal modes of propulsion, spanning interests in both bioinspired propulsion and classical aviation. In her role as Co-Director of CPET, Meredith works closely with the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach to coordinate and lead a variety of workshops, speakers, discussions, and more. These events support a community of graduate students and postdocs passionate about becoming effective educators through an improved understanding of research-based pedagogy.
Matthew Alexander Langley
Nina Mohebbi California Institute of Technology
Micah Kalaihi Kushi Nishimoto California Institute of Technology
Kay T Xia California Institute of Technology

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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For those interested in:

Advocacy and Policy
Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology