Rigor mortis - On the hetero-patriarchal trappings of “academic rigor” at Purdue

Most young men have learned empirical engineering by the time they reach engineering school.

Tree huts, rope swings, fires, fire crackers, shooting, baseballs, footballs, running, jumping, climbing, destruction of what not, hammers, nails, pliers, bicycles, fist fights, wrestling, swimming, diving, fishing, rowing, canoeing, model building, model destruction, wood blocks, chemistry sets, go-carts, minibikes, tinker toys, Lego's, puppy dog tails — are merely a few of the boyhood experiences that constitute the prerequisites to Engineering 101.

I'm sorry, but My Little Pony is not on the list.

Most young men who are going to go to engineering school have learned empirical engineering by the time they reach engineering school.

Sadly, some have not. And many, unfortunately, are women ... pushed into "STEM" (I loathe that term) ... in the name of "gender equity" or some such drivel.

I once worked with a PhD Electrical Engineer (male) who had never, in his life, at age 30, handled a soldering iron. WTF!?!?

Most young men who are going to go to engineering school have learned empirical engineering by the time they reach engineering school.

Sadly, some have not. And many, unfortunately, are women ... pushed into "STEM" (I loathe that term) ... in the name of "gender equity" or some such drivel.

I once worked with a PhD Electrical Engineer (male) who had never, in his life, at age 30, handled a soldering iron. WTF!?!?

Let us hope (hope is NOT a plan) that the first year doesn't ruin any fine young men who would otherwise have made fine young engineers.

The trend is away from empirical type of instruction.
Well equipped instructional labs are vary expensive to equip and maintain. There is the tantalizing “Siren Call” that hardware is ubiquitous and a community (a throw away!) all can be done in software - games, phone apps, etc. all make that seem to be true. So to save money the “physical” can be simulated, no wonder “global warming modeling” seems to be plausible science to some technical people.

Thanks Heartlander.

Donna Riley, the head of the engineering department at Purdue [Correction: her actual title is Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education], has put the world on notice that "rigor" is a dirty word... argues that academic "rigor" is merely a blind for "white male heterosexual privilege." ... "The term," she writes, "has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations -- and links to masculinity in particular -- are undeniable." There follows a truly surreal meditation on the existential and sexist depredations of slide rules -- those hard, straight instruments that have traditionally been deployed by men -- and periodic eructations like this: Rigor may be a defining tool, revealing how structural forces of power and privilege operate to exclude men of color and women, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ [love the plus sign!] people, first-generation and low-income students, and non-traditionally-aged students... There is also "Scientific knowledge itself... is gendered, raced, and colonizing... [D]ecades of ethnographic research," she sobs, "document a climate of microaggresions and cultures of whiteness and masculinity in engineering."

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