2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Background

Service learning in engineering has been broadly criticized because it often reproduces colonial and globalist tendencies that ultimately undermine already-marginalized communities. Engineering students are often white, male, and/or from high socioeconomic backgrounds, and have had few- if any- courses that require them to consider empathetic approaches to designing for a client whose racial, ethnic, national, socioeconomic, or other demographic background differs from their own. A major problem with sending these students into new communities is that student learning often takes precedence over project outcomes, and community partners often suffer as a result. The motivation for this course was to explore whether asking students to address problems of equity and social justice with engineering solutions in their own communities would alleviate this problematic aspect of service learning, instead encouraging students to see themselves in solidarity with struggles in their home or campus communities.

Project Design and Execution

A Community Engaged Design course was introduced as a senior design capstone at a small, liberal arts college. Fifteen students from three majors enrolled in the project-based course. Students were introduced to the topic of community engaged design through identity mapping, reading and discussing critiques of engineering service projects, then asked to define their own design problem and develop their own partnerships. They used tactics such as public canvassing, surveys, and interviews with community leaders to solicit input from the public. They narrowed their focus first to pedestrian safety, and then more specifically to bicyclist safety at city intersections. Their final product was a prototype of a system which detected and warned drivers of the presence of bicyclists.

Lessons Learned

1. Inviting social identity into the classroom necessarily invites conflict as students navigate differences among themselves.
2. The community engaged aspect of the project was left open for students to define, and many of the students saw the community engagement aspects of the project as being at odds with the technical aspects of the project. For example, taking time to engage in stakeholder outreach was seen as delaying progress. The technical and community aspects of the project would ideally be bound together in a holistic and unified vision.
3. Students who were members of marginalized groups were often doing extra work to defend their viewpoints in the classroom.

Conclusions and Next Steps

1. More training in the area of conflict management, especially as it pertains to social identity, could have helped the students navigate conflict more professionally and kindly.
2. Requirements about stakeholder engagement, in addition to the technical requirements, could have helped the students prioritize and maintain relationships with community partners.
3. Clearer instruction and expectations about interaction with classmates, respecting different viewpoints, and centering marginalized voices was needed.