Overview

 In this project, we sought revolutionary change in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering (CBEE) at Oregon State University (OSU) by replacing a business-as-usual approach with a holistic, inclusive, professionally-based learning environment. We addressed social inequity by working towards creating engineering educational systems and interpersonal interactions that are professionally and personally life-affirming for all people across their differences. In collaboration with departmental faculty and staff, we saw change in our learning environments from sequestered activities to realistic, consequential work.

For context, OSU is a large, land-grant, research-intensive public university. CBEE currently has around 1,000 undergraduate students enrolled. This project leveraged CBEE's innovative studio curricular structure, where all core engineering science courses have small activity-based sections where students work in teams to complement large lecture delivery. We also leverage the history of CBEE faculty in foregrounding social justice as a core element in engineering work and engineering school.

Core project activities included: (1) curricular redesign of 11 core sophomore- and junior-level studio classes to support realistic, consequential learning leveraging research-based pedagogies; and (2) growing faculty and students? capacity to engage issues of inclusivity by shifting their cognitive and affective knowledge of power and privilege.

Intellectual Merit

Our project has moved the field forward by taking a systems approach to understanding the relationship between efforts to advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) and the development and adoption of research-based instructional practices. In higher education, too often initiatives towards improving JEDI focus on JEDI at the departmental level, with limited attention towards the role of innovative instructional practices. The reverse is also true; research on classroom reform is often carried out without consideration of the policies and practices of departmental contexts within which they operate and without considering faculty?s learning, development, and experiences. We attempted to shift departmental culture and practice by working with faculty and administrators to modify institutional structures including curricula, staffing approaches and reward systems to re-situate learning and instruction in CBEE.

Unlike much previous work, our approach advances both student and organizational learning by viewing social justice issues and learning opportunities as mutually constitutive aspects of educational systems. We address the important synergies between learning and equity through an activity systems-oriented framework and approach that integrates JEDI with meaningful, consequential learning. Our approach is to create activities, processes, and policies at both the classroom and department levels that have meaning and are consequential to learners while at the same time cultivating an environment where everyone feels they belong and can bring their full selves.

Our project investigates these two complementary themes and the interplay between them. We have investigated curricular structures, activities, and assessments to align schooling and engineering practice, with attention to broadening participation and diversifying strategies. We have studied student and faculty perceptions of departmental climate, their conceptualizations of oppression and privilege, and the evolving organizational changes as perceptions, strategies, and structures shift or resist change. Importantly, we explore the synergies between JEDI and MCL through investigations of departmental climate, peer relations and teaming processes for both faculty and students. Finally, we have identified ways in which departmental and institutional structures can resist change and ways they can be modified to support it.

Broader Impacts

Offering new approaches to instruction, curricular design, staffing strategies, and reward systems, our project has contributed to changes in the department and college at OSU. The studios, now the standard format for CBEE engineering science classes, are supported by graduate teaching assistant and undergraduate learning assistants (LAs) who are trained in learning theory and inclusive pedagogy. The realistic projects that are the focus of OSU's broader reform of all first-year engineering courses are supported by a studio structure with LAs.  While the abrupt transition to remote teaching during the pandemic was challenging, the studio structure allowed interactive engagement to be translated to Zoom breakout rooms, and the work towards an inclusive culture translated to greater faculty awareness and care for students' individual situations and mental health. On the other hand, with four different department heads in CBEE, and changes in the university's provost and president over the project life, there were currents pushing other innovative aspects back to the status quo.

 The sound theoretical foundation makes the project approach scalable and adaptable beyond OSU.  As more institutions and faculty experience an inclusive culture centered on engaging students with work that connects to engineering practice as well as their own identities and communities, we expect retention, recruitment, and graduate numbers to increase.  Importantly, these graduates will enter the profession with knowledge and skills to make sound technical, social, and ethical engineering decisions. Additionally, faculty empowered to participate holistically in their teaching and research would reap personal benefits likely to be reflected in measurable outcomes such as research productivity, teaching effectiveness, sense of belonging, and growth.

Last Modified: 09/29/2021
Modified by: Susan B Nolen