Teaching Community Engagement to Engineers via a Workshop Approach
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 145, Issue 4
Abstract
Engineers design and create solutions to solve problems and positively impact people’s lives. Unfortunately, traditional engineering training does not prepare students to engage with the people in the community where they will work. This creates an engagement gap between the skills of engineers and their ability to communicate with a community to solve problems. To decrease this engagement gap, the authors developed a community engagement workshop that introduces engineering graduate students and early professionals to the complexities and challenges of community engagement and development. During the 2-day workshop, participants engaged in a variety of exercises that helped them to listen to their community partners, look beyond the technology, and empower the community. This article describes the workshop’s learning objectives, design, activities, and implementation challenges as a resource for educators developing programs to train socially engaged engineers.
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Acknowledgments
This research was undertaken with support from The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU), funded by the National Science Foundation (cooperative agreement Nos. 0531194 and 0937591). The findings and observations contained in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the university faculty, staff, and participants at the universities that hosted the workshops. The authors also recognize the efforts of the various community groups that gave their time and expertise to help us develop the workshop.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 145 • Issue 4 • October 2019
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 6, 2018
Accepted: Jan 9, 2019
Published online: May 17, 2019
Published in print: Oct 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Oct 17, 2019
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