Rigor mortisOn the hetero-patriarchal trappings of “academic rigor” at Purdue. If you are thinking of building a bridge, be careful if your engineer went to Purdue University. 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. In an article for Engineering Education called “Rigor/Us: Building Boundaries and Disciplining Diversity with Standards of Merit,†Professor Riley, who is also the author of Engineering and Social Justice, argues that academic “rigor†is merely a blind...