Posted on 08/03/2017 5:25:47 PM PDT by RightGeek
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FTA: "The recently appointed dean of Purdue’s school, Dr. Donna Riley.."
I believe we have identified the central problem here.
Not sure about STEM, but I’ve noticed a distinct lack of them in business majors. The pushy, vocal kind either were rare where I was(Information Systems Management), even less in more traditional business disciplines(like Finance).
If that’s not making the people in stupid majors take smart stuff, they shouldn’t many people in real majors take propaganda.
The Cypress Street Viaduct comes to mind.
In the comments section of the original article one will find the following abstract to a paper by the Dean of Purdue’s School of Engineering Education:
“Thermodynamics is a subject area in engineering that is deeply relevant as it deals with energy use in society. However, students often struggle to connect their experiences with energy course content traditionally based in theoretical discoveries from 19th century Western Europe. The work of French philosopher Michel Foucault is similar to thermodynamics in that its abstract poststructuralist theory strikes fear in the hearts of students, but can be made deeply relevant when its understanding is grounded in one’s experience”; abstract to “Power/Knowledge: Using Fourcault to promote critical understandings of content and pedagogy in Engineering Thermodynamics” by Dr. Donna Riley, Dean of Purdue’s School of Engineering Education
The errors, deceptions and diversions in just those three sentences of that abstract boggle one’s mind.
Students struggle with thermo NOT because they can’t connect it with their experiences, but because thermo is hard - and anybody who has taken a course in thermodynamics would know that.
Thermodynamics was not developed as a strictly theoretical proposition, but (as in most science) through an interplay of theory and experiment - heck, one could argue that the fundamental experimentation (which involved careful observation of processes as mundane as the heat generated when boring cannons) was more critical than the development of the mathematical theory related to it.
The fact that thermo was developed largely in 19th century Europe is totally and completely irrelevant - the Carnot cycle would describe a thermodynamic phenomenon equally well whether it was proposed by a Frenchman born in 1796 or a Korean born in 1896 or an Egyptian born in 1696.
The work of Foucault has practically nothing in common with thermodynamics - one would be hard-pressed to find to realms in academia more dissimilar: thermo provides a detailed understanding of a portion of physical reality with profound practical consequences; Foucault postulates a system of philosophical approaches best-described as a load of bull-pucky, which has mostly served the purpose of providing a pay check for poseurs like Riley.
One would hope post-structuralist theory WOULD strike fear in the hearts of undergrads; sadly what it does instead is provide an academic hiding place for students who have neither the intellectual ability nor the work ethic to handle stuff like thermo.
I could go on, but I don’t want to have to hit a booster dose of my blood pressure meds.
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” —Richard Feynman, physicist
What about them? There were many peasants in China, Russia, and elsewhere who might have been engineers, but their cultures historically were too backward to have a need for more than a handful of engineers. Besides, peasants in semi-feudal or socialist societies have very few opportunities at anything, including eating regularly in many cases. As for the US, engineering wasn’t professionalized until the 20th Century. Before then, there were no PE certifications or education requirements. Edison, Ford, and the Wright Brothers just went off and did things on their own. Now, I know you are trolling the “women and minorities” whine...for nearly 50 years they have had more than equal opportunity in a professionalized engineering environment. They haven’t made much of it, if you assume, as you do, that interest in engineering and motivation, among other things, are equally distributed.
Actually the person was being very honest. Let them change the oil in your car.
If you told him why, you just did him a big favor, and helped him on the road to building his character.
So basically parents of high school students who are looking at colleges for Engineering degrees should run, not walk, away from any college with an Engineering Program named College of Engineering Education??
Sad commentary, but it is good to know what to stay away from!
Not until college administrators who think this crap needs to infest every area are gone.
I am a Chemical Engineer with real education, but from the 1960's, of course.
STEM multiculturalism bump for later....
Maybe this Dean should spend more time studying Léon Foucault, than Michael Foucault. One did a service for all humanity. The other is a living disservice to everything else.
Please do the world a favor and put a copy of the “WeChat” in the termination folder. You won’t have to worry about negative recommendations. Just copy the “WeChat” to all inquirers.
It certainly is true in Europe.
Graduated when calculations were still done with slide rule/pencil/paper. One has to LOVE the profession in order to make a living in it and survive.
That pollution hit Penn State about the time it joined the BIG 10. Students at PSU are not taught, they are indoctrinated!
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