Dear ERM members,
Hard to believe that September is already here! Before long, the leaves will be falling here in the northeast and we’ll be picking pumpkins. We’re in the swing of the semester at Penn State, and while some things feel normal, other things definitely do not. My son started school in a hybrid mode last week…only to have the superintendent send an e-mail yesterday that school will likely go fully remote in the next day or two due to rising cases of COVID in our area. I keep telling myself to continue to take things one day at a time.
Last newsletter, I asked our ERM members to share any helpful thoughts that can get us through challenging times. Alan Cheville from Bucknell shared a helpful quote for us to think about this year. “‘It is not just the mountain ahead, but the grain of sand in your shoe that wears you down.’ – Japanese Proverb. It reminds me that we all have to work at making things easy on each other when we are faced with something big.”
Kyle Trenshaw from the University of Rochester shared some ideas for keeping balance and participating in some self-care. “I am just barely managing to exist by doing yoga six times a week and meditating every single day. I’ve also found brewing tea gongfu style very grounding in these summer months of uncertainty. I used to think of these things as luxuries to indulge in, but I can clearly see that for myself, they are mandatory for my mental health. Framing self-care in that way, as being absolutely necessary and unskippable, has made taking the time for myself much easier. Plus, when I talk about my own self-care as necessary, it gives others validation in their own needs and permission (in a sense) to actually take the time they need, too!”
Thank you to Alan and Kyle for sharing these thoughts. I find it helpful to learn from our community ways they are coping. If anyone else wants to share some helpful quotes or ideas for maintaining balance during these times, please send them my way and I will include in our 9/15 newsletter.
Take care,
Sarah
ERM Announcements for 9/1/2020
General Announcements
ERM ANNOUNCEMENT: Request for ERM feedback on ASEE Hub
JOURNAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Updated Author Guidelines Now Available: Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering
CALL FOR PAPERS: Higher Education Themed Issue – Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering
RESEARCH STUDY: Survey on natural vocabulary in machine learning
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: Participate in the (virtual) Engineering Education Research Seminars at University of Michigan
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: CHEER UP Talk Series available online
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT: University of Michigan Ph.D. and M.S. Programs Engineering Education Research PROSPECTIVE STUDENT OPEN HOUSE
Position Announcements
POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: Researcher/Program Manager position at UC Irvine
General Announcements
ERM ANNOUNCEMENT: Request for ERM feedback on ASEE Hub
You may have received an e-mail from ASEE about a new Hub that is intended to promote communication among members. The ERM Division has a group site within this Hub. Please provide feedback on the ASEE HUB as to how you would like to see ERM use the platform. To access the Hub, please go to https://aseehub.asee.org and look for the group for Educational Research and Methods (ERM). Note the first discussion item welcoming members. Please use this discussion board to give feedback or start other discussions. How would you like this tool to be used in the future for ERM?
JOURNAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Updated Author Guidelines Now Available: Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering
Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering is excited to announce that we have published updated authors guidelines (https://www.begellhouse.com/forauthors/journals/journal-of-women-and-minorities-in-science-and-engineering.html). Among other instructions, we now request that authors include a positionality statement and section about how the researchers ensured the protection of vulnerable populations. Our updated guidelines also articulate an explicit expectation that submitting authors actively participate in the constructive review process of approximately three other manuscripts. Please read Editor-in-Chief Julie P. Martin’s editorial about constructive review (http://www.dl.begellhouse.com/download/article/203fb33c02179492/JWM-33945.pdf). We look forward to receiving your submissions!
CALL FOR PAPERS: Higher Education Themed Issue – Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering
The Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (JWM) is pleased to announce a Themed Issue on Reimagining STEM Higher Education Research with Guest Editors Drs. Walter Lee and Sarah Rodriguez. We invite those working in this area to submit original papers that focus on social and political identities (e.g., race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability) that are structurally linked to systems of oppression. Articles should focus on one or more aspects of the STEM higher education system (e.g., policy, structure, pedagogy, course content, ecology) and may address any combination of undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, and/or faculty in a range of higher education contexts (e.g., community colleges, minority-serving institutions, rural).
We will accept the following types of papers: (1) Position Papers presenting an arguable opinion, plan of action, or agenda; (2) Methods Papers interrogating methodologies, approaches, or techniques; and (3) Theory Papers interrogating frameworks, conceptual models, or paradigms. Questions to consider include: How might we better use theories to promote equity in STEM higher education? What research methods are best suited for generating the sorts of insights needed to promote equity in STEM higher education? How might we reconceptualize how we design a STEM curriculum? What lines of inquiry should be prioritized by social scientists and education researchers focused on equity in STEM higher education? If you are uncertain about the suitability of an idea, please ask one of the guest editors.
The due date for abstracts is October 9th, 2020. Please see the Call for Papers for additional information: https://tinyurl.com/JWMThemedIssue
Walter C. Lee (walterl@vt.edu) and Sarah L. Rodriguez (Sarah.Rodriguez@tamuc.edu)
Guest Editors, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (JWM)
RESEARCH STUDY: Survey on natural vocabulary in machine learning
Calling all those interested in improving tags and engineers’ search for machine learning/data mining research materials!
Please consider participating in a survey geared toward gathering the natural vocabulary used for finding ML concepts. The data will be used to create a mapping between subject tags and user’s natural language for these concepts, in the hopes of improving search and to educate researchers on different search terms for ML techniques.
Please consider taking and sharing the (20 min.) survey. As a thank you for participating, your email (if you choose to provide one) will be entered into a drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card. Also, all who participate may receive a copy of the concept mappings from this research.
https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9RkgBB3E68iZlZj.
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: Participate in the (virtual) Engineering Education Research Seminars at University of Michigan
The University of Michigan Engineering Education Research Program is excited to be able to invite you to our 2020-2021 EER Seminar Series. Building on anti-racist momentum from the summer, we’ve decided to use our EER seminar platform to both amplify the work of Black and other minoritzied scholars and to showcase research about the experiences of minoritized engineering students and/or engineers. Because of COVID uncertainty, we’ve planned for all of the seminars (through spring 2021) to take place virtually, via Zoom.
We have an incredible lineup (see below)! The seminars are all scheduled for Wednesdays, at 3:30 – 4:30pm EST, and most events are open to the interested public (though you must register to attend). More information, as well as registration details, will be available on https://eer.engin.umich.edu/events-seminars/ a few weeks before each talk, and you may sign up to receive email reminders and registration links for the seminars using this interest form: (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVyS9joC9iHcoVLtvWuo939wn1ekHlVhBHZgBmVdIhpQ7TRA/viewform).
2020-2021 EER Seminar Series
· 9/9/20 Monique Ross, Florida International University
· 9/23/20 Stephanie Masta & Alice Pawley, Purdue University
· 10/7/20 Walter Lee, Virginia Tech
· 10/28/20 Rosemary Perez, University of Michigan
· 11/18/20 James Holly, Jr, Wayne State University
· 1/27/21 Danny Caballero, Michigan State University
· 2/17/21 Kelly Cross, University of Nevada – Reno
· 3/10/21 Adam Kirn, University of Nevada – Reno
· 3/24/21 Inês DeReito, University College London
· 4/14/21 Laura Hirshfield, University of Michigan
We look forward to seeing you soon!
The University of Michigan Engineering Education Program
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: CHEER UP Talk Series available online
This summer, almost 400 people registered and participated in the Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research: Updated Perspectives (CHEER UP) talk series. Thank you to all of the participants from around the world and to the authors who made time for the sessions. The hope is to continue the series later this year or next summer. Videos of all the sessions from summer 2020 are now available online at https://bit.do/cheerupvideos
For more information, contact Aditya Johri at George Mason University at johri@gmu.edu.
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT: University of Michigan Ph.D. and M.S. Programs Engineering Education Research PROSPECTIVE STUDENT OPEN HOUSE
We are excited to invite all interested students to attend an open house to learn about the UM’s graduate program in Engineering Education Research (EER). UM’s EER program represents a unique, interdisciplinary model: several tenure-line EER faculty are embedded within the traditional engineering departments, while EER graduate students are part of a college-wide program. This allows the EER faculty and their research to be well-integrated with the traditional engineering disciplines, and it provides students a better opportunity to engage in innovative research and make scholarly contributions to the engineering education community. An EER graduate degree will provide students with career opportunities in academia, nonprofit organizations, and industry. More information about the program is available at our EER website (https://eer.engin.umich.edu/).
We will be hosting a Virtual EER Prospective Student Open House on Thursday and Friday, 10/08/20 and 10/09/20 via Zoom (zoom link will be emailed prior to the meeting). Students from all institutions are invited to attend. Participants will hear about the program, meet faculty and graduate students, tour (virtually) the beautiful University of Michigan campus, and learn about career opportunities as a UM graduate in this field. Note that applicants to the EER graduate program must have Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in a traditional engineering discipline.
Please register to attend at this open house registration site (https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6o3uvit5UsOu52R), and please forward this link to any friends who may be interested. Email us for more information at eerprogram@umich.edu.
Can’t make it to the open house but are interested in applying? Visit the EER website (https://eer.engin.umich.edu/) to learn more about the graduate program. We hope you will consider UM as you decide to pursue your graduate studies in engineering education.
Position Announcements
POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: Researcher/Program Manager position at UC Irvine
The Education Research Initiative (ERI) (https://educationresearch.uci.edu/) at the University of California, Irvine is looking to hire an Academic Administrator to help guide and implement its mission. This is both a researcher and program manager position. Come work with us on exciting projects and help build a community of education researchers at UCI!
For more information and how to apply, see: https://recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF06239
Please contact Natascha Buswell (nbuswell@uci.edu) with questions.
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