Posted on 08/02/2017 9:46:13 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Those who would like to soften the hard sciences may think that they are building metaphorical bridges but you might not want to drive over the physical bridges they construct.
"Alas, the world we engineers envisioned as young students is not quite as simple and straightforward as we had wished because a phalanx of social justice warriors, ideologues, egalitarians, and opportunistic careerists has ensconced itself in America's college and universities," Indrek Wichman, an engineering professor at Michigan State writes in a column distributed by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. "The destruction they have caused in the humanities and social sciences has now reached to engineering."
"One of the features of their growing power is the phenomenon of 'engineering education' programs and schools. They have sought out the soft underbelly of engineering, where phrases such as 'diversity' and 'different perspectives' and 'racial gaps' and 'unfairness' and 'unequal outcomes' make up the daily vocabulary. Instead of calculating engine horsepower or microchip power/size ratios or aerodynamic lift and drag, the engineering educationists focus on group representation, hurt feelings, and 'microaggressions' in the profession."
"An excellent example is the establishment at Purdue University (once informally called the 'MIT of the Midwest') of a whole School of Engineering Education. What is this school's purpose? Its website tells us that it 'envisions a more socially connected and scholarly engineering education. This implies that we radically rethink the boundaries of engineering and the purpose of engineering education.'"
To give you an idea of how radical a change this is, take a look at Ayn Rand's first novel, We The Living. Published in 1936, it is the Gone with the Wind of the Soviet Union. Ironically, GWTW was published that same year.
The heroine of We The Living, Kira Argounova, studies to be an engineer because it is a field not subject to interpretation. So, those who would transform engineering are going beyond even the imaginations of the commissars of Stalinist Russia.
“...a more socially connected and scholarly engineering education.”
If the first, then not the second. True scholarship is the arch enemy of the progressives. And, “social engineering” is an oxymoron of the first order if we are to retain our respect for the intellect and success of engineering.
Fat chance. That boat sailed years ago.
If I actually believed the newsletters, I would think that the engineering department is made up completely of women and minorities. No pics of white guys, anywhere, with the exception of a (very) few "old revered professors". It's BS, a simple look at the listings of graduates reveals a whole lot more "John and Joe Smiths" than "Jane Smiths" and "Deontre' Smiths". I'd guess that the actual numbers are about 80-20, and the College of Engineering just takes lots and lots of pics of the "20".
Sad. When I was there, it was an excellent school. Some cutting edge stuff in my field, and was nationally-renowned in a couple of others. No more.
People are bags of emotions walking around.
First they came for the Arts majors. But I didn’t care because I wasn’t an Arts major.
Then the came for the Humanities majors. But I didn’t care because I wasn’t a Humanities major.
Then the came for the science and engineering majors. But by then, there was no one left with to fight them.
You’ve seen it for awhile in any engineering field touching upon the public.
E.g.
-The push for the wonderful “smart meter” that allows the utility to turn your power off during high use periods in favor of better customers, like the government.
-Urban development- designing not by how people live, but how government wants them to live - not just using more public transportation but deliberately making it more difficult to use private vehicles instead of accommodating them.
-Changing building codes to mandate more energy saving requirements than what is actually desired for safety (the original purpose of the code).
-The higher SEER rating for air conditioning, at this point in technology, requires thinner and more exotic alloys for the coil making it not only much more expensive, but weaker as the thinner coil walls will fail more often due to metal fatigue. So not only more expensive, but needs replacing more often.
-Do I really need to say anything about regulations concerning vehicles since the early 70s?
-Eliminating phosphates from dishwasher and laundry detergent; dictating your toilet flush; elimination of incandescent bulbs...
The list goes on and on. These requirements come from politics, not what makes equipment more useful.
In a nutshell, leftist politics is redefining what is a “better” machine.
People are thought of as malleable and perfectible. People are the concrete to be poured into the mold of their vision of a socialist utopia.
Math, Science, and Engineering must be changed because they are objective and hence not subject to the grievance mongering of the left.
As evidence of this consider this article about the University of Iowa: UPDATE: Not Being Stupid Is ‘Cognitive Privilege’ Now, Which Is Just Like White Privilege.
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