[ProtectOurFreedom]

It is probably too soon for new Purdue Engineering graduates to have designed this bridge, but failures like this bridge are an expected outcome of the dumbing down of American engineering education. I introduce into evidence...

Queering Engineering At Purdue

The American Conservative. By Rod Dreher, March 30, 2017

Purdue University has hired Donna Riley as its new head of its School of Engineering Education. Here’s an excerpt from Prof. Riley’s biography page at Smith College, where she taught for 13 years:

My scholarship currently focuses on applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women’s studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices. In 2005 I received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support this work, which includes developing, implementing, and assessing curricular and pedagogical innovations based on liberative pedagogies and student input at Smith, and understanding how students at Smith conceptualize their identities as engineers. I seek as an engineering educator to be part of a paradigm shift that these pedagogies demand, repositioning concerns about diversity in science and engineering from superficial measures of equity as headcounts, to addressing justice and the genuine engagement of all students as core educational challenges.

She will come to Purdue from Virginia Tech. This is an excerpt from her faculty page there:

Riley’s research interests include engineering and social justice; engineering ethics; social inequality in engineering education; and the liberal education of engineers. In 2005 she received a National Science Foundation CAREER award on implementing and assessing critical and feminist pedagogies in engineering classrooms. Students in Riley’s research group are pursuing interests including culturally inclusive pedagogies; understanding faculty motivations and approaches to teaching engineering ethics; connections between critical thinking and engineering ethics pedagogies; engineering education policy; and public participation in engineering projects impacting communities.

With people like Riley in charge of American engineering education, expect design failures such as this to happen again and again.

[BlueLancer]

Beat me by four minutes ...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

My scholarship currently focuses on applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women’s studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices. In 2005 I received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support this work, which includes developing, implementing, and assessing curricular and pedagogical innovations based on liberative pedagogies and student input at Smith, and understanding how students at Smith conceptualize their identities as engineers. I seek as an engineering educator to be part of a paradigm shift that these pedagogies demand, repositioning concerns about diversity in science and engineering from superficial measures of equity as headcounts, to addressing justice and the genuine engagement of all students as core educational challenges.

Riley’s research interests include engineering and social justice; engineering ethics; social inequality in engineering education; and the liberal education of engineers. In 2005 she received a National Science Foundation CAREER award on implementing and assessing critical and feminist pedagogies in engineering classrooms. Students in Riley’s research group are pursuing interests including culturally inclusive pedagogies; understanding faculty motivations and approaches to teaching engineering ethics; connections between critical thinking and engineering ethics pedagogies; engineering education policy; and public participation in engineering projects impacting communities.

[lurked_for_a_decade]

The department of engineering “eduction” is not a part of any Engineering Curricula or department of college. It is part of the college of education for certification as a High School teacher. Sort of like getting a degree in Business Education is not in the College of Business.

Universities have fallen in the US but not as far as this article or its’ responders imply.

[MichaelCorleone]

Whoa! I think I’ll only walk across bridges built prior to say, 2000.

Does NOT inspire confidence.

[Verbosus]

Bookmark

[Neoliberalnot]

What you posted here is a nationwide trend to dumb down higher education, even in the STEM fields where competition and quality were once the hallmark of these programs. We in the STEM fields were fully aware of the useless degrees that were being generated in many areas of liberal arts decades ago. We all talked about some of these courses a simpleton could easily ace. At least a third of the students in higher education have absolutely no business being there. Many of them barely got out of high school.

[HollyB]

I coukdnt get thru the first paragraph before dropping my jaw.