Dear ERM members,

Throughout these past several months, I’ve often struggled for the right things to say to our ERM community as we’ve coped through the challenges surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. But I feel like this was most difficult today. Many in our country feel angry. Many feel helpless and lost, frustrated at repeated injustices. I also feel angry, but most of all, I feel sad. Because I don’t have sufficient words of wisdom or comfort right now, I will share a quote from author and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” To those of you are struggling right now, my thoughts are with you.

For ASEE and ERM news, our conference is almost upon us. I’ll provide some additional information about various ERM events in our next newsletter.

Take care,

Sarah

 

ERM Announcements for 6/1/2020

General Announcements

ASEE ANNOUNCEMENT: New Constituent Committee on Equity, Culture, and Social Justice in Education (ECSE)
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Olin College Summer Institute
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Research study on effects of COVID-19 on engineering students’ stress level and mental health
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Request to link to EER Resources

Position Announcements

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: WEPAN Executive Director Position

General Announcements

ASEE ANNOUNCEMENT: New Constituent Committee on Equity, Culture, and Social Justice in Education (ECSE)
ASEE has a new Constituent Committee (provisional division) on Equity, Culture, and Social Justice in Education (ECSE). The organizing members have outlined the following initial vision statement for the division:

The Equity, Culture, and Social Justice in Education (ECSE) Division is a home for individuals who are interested in laboring with and for under-resourced and disenfranchised people seeking to engage in engineering at any level of education. We aim to enrich the field of Engineering Education by leveraging our varied talents and experiences to produce scholarship and practices that a) increase resources and support for those with the greatest needs, b) uncover and dismantle systemically-oppressive educational barriers, and c) promote responsive pedagogy and transformative learning.

We anticipate that the division would seek and support work on the following topics:

Culturally relevant/responsive teaching
Disability studies & accessibility in education
Non-deficit approaches in engineering instruction
Classroom culture as connected to structural inequities
Urban education, teaching engineering in inequitable educational contexts
Activist, interdisciplinary, and critical perspectives on engineering education
Workshops and special sessions to promote understanding of equity issues for engineering faculty
We invite anyone interested in the division to sign up for our free membership, which is available now on ASEE’s website! That’s the best way to get on our mailing list for future division organizing.

Please also join us at a Virtual Business Meeting on Friday, June 26 from 2-4pm EDT to help map out the intentions and directions for the new division. For those who are attending the Virtual Conference this business meeting will be available to join through the virtual videoconference platform, for those who are not attending the conference there will be a telephone call-in number. Plans for the Business Meeting include:

Generating a shared vision that builds on the initial vision created by organizing members
Discussing disambiguation from and partnership with other associated divisions
Voting on leadership for the 2020-2021 term
Providing input to the Call for Papers
Signing up for formal or informal roles with the division
If you have any questions about the Constituent Committee or the Business Meeting, please reach out to Interim Division Chair, Stephen Secules at ssecules@fiu.edu or James Holly, Jr., Interim Program Chair, james.hollyjr@gmail.com.

Organizing Committee:

Stephen Secules, Florida International University

James Holly, Jr., Wayne State University

Ethan Eagle, University of Maryland

Cassandra McCall, Virginia Tech

Alex Mejia, University of San Diego

 

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Olin College Summer Institute
In response to the current global health crisis, the Olin College Summer Institute will take place in a virtual format during the week of June 8-12, 2020. As in past years, our colleagues are preparing to deliver an outstanding set of workshops addressing the design of student-centered learning experiences. This year, they are also building on their recent experiences in teaching and learning online to make the virtual versions of these workshops as engaging and effective as possible. And thanks to the generosity of the Kern Family Foundation, we are able to make these workshops available to you and your colleagues at no cost!

More information on the program is available on our Virtual Summer Institute website (https://pages.olin.edu/summerinstitute). Please register by June 3 to allow us time to create the most effective virtual experiences for you. Your registration is your pass to any of the workshops, discussions and sessions! RSVP today (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/olin-college-2020-virtual-summer-institute-tickets-105113114154).

 

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Research study on effects of COVID-19 on engineering students’ stress level and mental health
Hi all, I’m leading a small team to study the effects of COVID-19 on engineering students’ stress levels and mental health. We’re also incorporating some open-ended questions to get student opinions of what their institutions did well and what they could have done better. Our hope is that we can use the results of this research to help engineering programs support their students as they come back to campus, and to develop recommendations for how schools can handle COVID-like disasters in the future. Would you be willing to distribute this survey to students at your campus and/or pass this along to any of your colleagues who might be interested?

I’ve included sample recruitment email text below. The study has IRB approval from Cal Poly’s IRB, confirmation letter available on request.

Thanks for your consideration!

Andrew Danowitz

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Subject: Help us understand how universities can better support engineering students through the COVID-19 crisis

Body: Are you an undergraduate engineering student and 18 or older? If so, we need your help!

We are writing to ask for your help in determining how engineering students are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and how COVID-19 is affecting student stress levels. This information will be used to help inform universities and engineering programs nationwide on how best to support students during this crisis and in future emergencies. If you are willing to participate, please use the link below to take the included survey. We estimate participation will take about 15 minutes. As an added bonus, the first 1000 participants will receive a $5 amazon.com gift card!

https://www.research.net/r/rapidcovid19

 

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Request to link to EER Resources
As part of an effort to support NSF RIEF grantees, we are looking to collect resources that would be helpful for engineering faculty who are new to engineering education research. If you have a resource (paper, website, other) that you would be willing to share by a link on RIEF Community website, please email Karin Jensen at kjens@illinois.edu.

https://publish.illinois.edu/riefcommunity/

Best wishes,

Karin Jensen (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Kelly Cross (University of Nevada Reno), and Julie Martin (Ohio State)

 

Position Announcements

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: WEPAN Executive Director Position

WEPAN, Women in Engineering ProActive Network, is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1990 to be a catalyst for change to enhance the success of women in the engineering professions. WEPAN is the leading champion in North America for leveraging research and promising practices to propel the inclusion of women in the field of engineering. WEPAN’s network connects over 1000 advocates who actively pursue strategies and implement solutions to increase participation, retention, and success of women and other underrepresented groups in engineering from college to executive leadership.

The WEPAN Executive Director is responsible for providing leadership, setting direction and proving guidance of WEPAN’s activities, members, and member organizations. This is accomplished through establishing and executing major goals and objectives for the organization, while recommending and implementing policies established by the Board of Directors. The Executive Director will continuously analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of all operations including the funding model, organizational structure, and personnel. Building relationships and resource development are the two responsibilities for this position. The successful candidate coordinates major activities through consultants and member-volunteers. The position requires proactive management, sound fiscal judgment, and a commitment to inclusivity and diversity. The Executive Director acts as a thought leader, works collaboratively, thinks strategically, and is fiscally responsible to ensure long-term success of the organization.

For more information and to apply, see https://www.wepan.org/page/WEPAN-Exec-Director.

 

 

To send an announcement to the ERM listserv, please prepare a 2-3 paragraph description including any relevant URLs and contact info as well as a subject line. Do not include any attachments. Be sure that the announcement includes the person to contact with questions. Email all of this information to Sarah Zappe at ser163@psu.edu with [ERM Announcement] in the subject line to facilitate email sorting. Announcements will be sent out on the 1st and 15th of each month. Each set of announcements will be included in the announcements email twice. Announcements will also be recorded on the ERM website: http://erm.asee.org/

For more resources and position announcements, please see the Engineering Education Community Resource Wiki available at http://bit.ly/engredu. A direct link to job postings at https://bitly.com/eecr-jobs.