Juan Lucena

The strategic landscape governing extractive industries has undergone a profound transformation in the brief interval since the inaugural edition of this Special Issue in 2024

This paper describes how engineering education can be transformed to serve Colombia’s most vulnerable sectors of its society. But first, before proposing and transformation, faculty and students are invited to understand engineering education and practice in the context of historical and political processes that shape and condition the priorities, problems, and needs attended by engineers. Second, once they understand engineering as a historical and political phenomenon, faculty and students are invited to a critical self-reflection of engineering mindsets and attitudes to assess the necessary changes that must take place to put engineering education and practice to the service of society’s most vulnerable communities. Third, the paper proposes normative frameworks for socially responsible engineering (SRE), that goes beyond engineering ethics, and for engineering for sustainable community development (ESCD) that goes beyond well-intentioned engineering for community projects. Finally, the paper shares examples of how these critical reflections and frameworks have been institutionalized in curricula, projects, and innovative pedagogies in the Humanitarian Engineering (HE) program at Colorado School of Mines and how these could become part of HE-Colombia, a national initiative to put engineering to the service of Colombia’s most vulnerable communities.

En la educación ingenieril en los Estados Unidos y en la mayoría de los países del mundo, ha existido una separación histórica e ideológica entre el aprendizaje "social" y el "técnico", a pesar de que la práctica de la ingeniería siempre es sociotécnica. La mayoría de los planes de estudio de ingeniería se enfocan en temas técnicos, cubriendo superficialmente los aspectos sociales. Sin embargo, una perspectiva sociotécnica está siendo reconocida como importante para el éxito, la sostenibilidad y la equidad de los proyectos de ingeniería. En los EE.UU, la ingeniería para el desarrollo comunitario (ECD, por sus siglas en inglés) están tratando de cerrar la brecha entre una formación universitaria técnicamente estrecha y la ingeniería como una práctica sociotécnica mediante el desarrollo de pedagogías que incorporan estrategias concretas para la investigación y práctica sociotécnica. Este artículo explorará una de estas estrategias: la traducción de la investigación. La traducción de la investigación aplica de manera efectiva los hallazgos de investigación en resultados prácticos, cerrando la brecha entre el conocimiento académico, el conocimiento común y el impacto en el mundo real. Su objetivo es hacer que la investigación compleja sea accesible y aplicable a diferentes audiencias, fomentando prácticas basadas en evidencia para la mejora de la sociedad. En este artículo, exploramos estudios de caso de traducción de la investigación en un proyecto internacional de ECD entre EE.UU y Colombia de minería de oro artesanal y de pequeña escala (MAPE). Dos estudiantes de posgrado, Gibson y Rojas, desarrollaron proyectos de investigación en ingeniería para comunidades MAPE en Antioquia, Colombia. Las principales preguntas de investigación son hasta qué punto las realidades de los proyectos de investigación de Gibson y Rojas se alinean con un modelo propuesto de traducción de investigación para ECD y cómo el contexto de las comunidades de MAPE en Antioquia influyeron en sus prácticas y modelo de traducción de investigación.

This study set out to identify emerging trends in advancing engineering for sustainable development, supporting the engineering workforce to address wicked problems, and strengthening pathways between engineering education, industry, and policy. The following question guided this work: What are the emerging factors impacting the future of global sustainability efforts within engineering, and how can these be amplified to increase the impact of engineering for sustainable development? Using an adapted Delphi method with surveys, focus groups, and member-checking interviews, we hosted the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2022 Engineering Global Development (EGD) Stakeholder Summit. The summit convened industry leaders, innovators, and academics to explore emerging factors impacting the future of global sustainability efforts in engineering. This manuscript synthesizes emerging trends and proposes recommendations for engineering, particularly in the specific focus area of engineering for sustainable development (e.g., ‘humanitarian engineering’, ‘global engineering’). Critical recommendations include the adoption of emerging cultural mindsets, which include: (1) take an interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach, (2) consider dynamic and interconnected systems, (3) increase humility and intercultural competence, (4) prioritize diversity and inclusion, (5) increase localization and center community perspectives, (6) challenge the perception that engineering is neutral, and (7) broaden the goals of engineering. Ultimately, this study highlights pathways forward for the broader engineering community to more effectively contribute to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Background: Students who are the first in their families to attend college are an integral part of undergraduate engineering programs. Growing bodies of research argue that educators could better support these students if they understood the unique backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge they bring with them to higher education.Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we identify salient funds of knowledge used by a group of first‐generation college students in their educational and work‐related experiences. Secondly, we use the funds of knowledge identified in our participants' experiences to create a survey instrument.Design/Method: A mixed methods approach was used. Ethnographic interview data of six first‐generation college students were used to hypothesize constructs and create survey items. Survey data were collected from 812 students. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to verify the underlying theoretical structures among the survey items and hypothesized constructs.Results: Validity evidence supported a 10‐factor model as opposed to the hypothesized 6‐factor model. The 10 latent constructs that make up the funds of knowledge instrument are as follows: tinkering knowledge from home, tinkering knowledge from work, connecting experiences, networks from family members, networks from college friends, networks from coworkers, networks from neighborhood friends, perspective taking, reading people, and mediating ability.Conclusions: Recognizing first‐generation college students' funds of knowledge is a first step to creating curricular spaces and experiences that better serve them. A survey scale allows educators to empirically examine how these accumulated bodies of knowledge are transmitted to capital, create advantages in engineering, and provides a useful tool to bridge students' knowledge in the classroom.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of engineering educators in the United States and Colombia designed and led a two-week virtual “field session” for engineering undergraduate students that aimed at achieving the same educational outcomes as those from the previous in-country field session. Our NSF PIRE funded Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities (RMRC) project uses multi-country, interinstitutional, and interdisciplinary collaboration to train U.S. engineering students to co-design socially responsible and sustainable artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) systems with mining communities and engineers in Latin America. Drawing from pre- and post-field session student interviews, essays, and survey responses, this article analyzes how the virtual 2020 field session and the in-person 2019 session influenced students’ global sociotechnical competency. We offer a conceptualization of global sociotechnical competency that synthesizes notions of global engineering competency with theories of socially responsible engineering that emphasize problem definition and solution with underserved communities. Our research suggests that whereas many educators raised concerns about the efficacy of virtual formats for student learning and professional development, the 2020 session was effective for enhancing students’ abilities to identify stakeholders and methods to engage them, as well as for using sociotechnical coordination while engaging in problem definition. While the small number of student participants cautions against making broad generalizations, the virtual (2020) and in-person (2019) students experienced similar increases in self-reported empathizing practices with the intended users of their designs; a desire and ability to integrate social concerns into their design; a desire and ability to work with people from different backgrounds; and self-efficacy in engineering. The virtual students were less likely, however, than their in-person counterparts to desire a humanitarian engineering career. While the small number of students raises questions for extrapolating the results of our findings, our research does signal fruitful areas of future research for making humanitarian engineering projects more equitable and effective, even in virtual settings.

A Comparative Analysis of Online and In-class Versions of Engineering Cultures At many institutions, online courses are becoming increasingly available. Yet, very little research has been completed on the effectiveness of online courses as compared to in class versions. “Online” is defined here to be a course in which all instructional and course materials are available via internet. At Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the Colorado School of Mines a course titled, Engineering Cultures, has been offered both online and in class. Based on the current Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria, all engineering students should have some understanding of global issues, suggesting the importance of courses such as Engineering Cultures. If such a course can be delivered online, access can be provided to a broad range of engineering students. Online seems to be an excellent method to provide broad access to educational material, but is it as effective as in class versions of the same course? As part of this study, a multiple choice pretest and a posttest were administered to a treatment and control group. The treatment group completed the online version of the course and the control group completed the in class version of the course. Both groups also completed a survey at the end of the course. The results of this analysis were surprising: the treatment group displayed greater increases from pre to post test than did the control group. In other words, the online students displayed a greater increase in knowledge as measured by the test than did the in class students. I. Introduction: An online course is defined here to be a course in which all the instructional and course materials are available via internet. Often these sites are password protected and access is provided only to enrolled students. Materials can include papers, assigned readings, pre-recorded lectures, notes, exams and quizzes. Typically, software programs, such as Blackboard, allow the instructor to control when students view material and what material they view. This allows teachers to further determine when an exam is administered and the amount of time permitted to complete the exam. With the exception of face-to-face interaction, online has all of the elements of regular instruction. Online learning, however, has yet to receive a great deal of research attention. Many questions remain concerning the appropriateness of online learning. For example, how effective is on-line learning? Is it possible to gain as much knowledge through computer interaction as with a professor in the room interacting with students? How does student learning differ in online or in class versions of a course? A course titled Engineering Cultures was designed and first implemented by Drs. Gary Downey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VP), and Juan Lucena, Colorado School of Mines (CSM). Engineering Cultures is designed to teach future engineers how the culture of engineering differs across various countries. For example, there are large differences among the expectations and roles of engineers in France, United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. This impacts the manner in which engineers interact and solve problems. Although these countries share many

This book, part of the IEEE PCS Professional Engineering Communication Series, is a thoughtful examination of the role of social justice in engineering education and practice.