Lehigh U’s Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry leads special issue of ASEE Advances in Engineering Education

"I have witnessed firsthand the transformation that occurs in students when they work on challenges they deeply care about and where they believe they can make a real difference in the lives of others," writes Khanjan Mehta, Lehigh University’s Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry, in his introduction to a special issue of the journal Advances in Engineering Education.

"At that point, grades don’t matter, the number of hours spent on a project are not counted, and social life takes a backseat, for the students are laser-focused on the mission of the project," he continues. "Students find themselves and define themselves when they lose themselves in the quest for building a world that works for everyone. Students truly come alive, realize that engineers can be artists and anthropologists and entrepreneurs at the same time, and accomplish things neither they nor their faculty advisors thought possible."

Mehta served as guest editor for the special issue of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) journal, which was devoted to “Programs that Make an Impact,” as conceived by the publication’s founding editor, Larry Shuman, a professor of industrial engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

"An engineering educator with thoughts of creating an impactful, sustainable program would be well advised to first review [Mehta's] set of questions and then carefully read the seven papers in this issue," Shuman writes. "It is a valuable resource for not only engineering educators, but any educator who wants to create a sustainable, innovative program that makes an impact on a less-developed part of the world."

Mehta, the lead instigator for Lehigh's Campus Sustainable Impact Fellowship, Lehigh Valley Social Impact Fellowship, and Global Social Impact Fellowship programs, presented an extensive list of "key questions that drive the design and operation of impact-focused academic programs" as part of his guest editorial. In his role as guest editor, he also led a rigorous process that thoughtfully condensed a large set of submitted abstracts down to seven papers published in the issue.

"For this issue," he says, "we invited articles from faculty who have developed or offer courses and programs that engage students in real-world technology projects related to social innovation and global sustainable development, and prioritize long-term project outcomes―real, sustainable impact."

According to Mehta, the objective of this four-year effort was to curate proven practices and initiate larger conversations around engineering programs that engage students and faculty in rigorous research, design, field-testing, and dissemination of technology-based solutions that address global development challenges.

"Whether partnering with departments on campus or communities in Appalachia, or striving to transform markets in Angola," he says, "we wanted to learn from, and celebrate, programs that espouse diverse academic models, philosophies of engagement, and funding mechanisms to deliver practical solutions to complex challenges, including those related to food, energy, water, and health."

The seven papers included in the issue are as follows:

• Using the Fair Trade Learning Framework to Improve the Outcomes of Engagement Between Universities and Off-Campus Partners: Applications and Implications for Program Design (Nora P. Reynolds, Haverford College; Nordica MacCarty, Oregon State University; Kendra V. Sharp, Oregon State University; Eric Hartman, Haverford College)
• Household Energy In Guatemala: An Interdisciplinary Course Series Integrating Learning, Research, And Praxis For Impact (Nordica MacCarty, Oregon State University; Julie Walkin, Oregon State University)
• Driving Transformational Sustainability in a University Through Structural and Academic Innovation: A Case Study of A Public University in Spain (Jaime Moreno-Serna, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Teresa Sánchez-Chaparro, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Wendy M. Purcell, Harvard University; Carlos Mataix, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
• The Peugeot Center Model and Mentoring Explored through a Case Study of the Design and Installation of a Potable Water System in Guatemala with ADICAY (Kirsten Heikkinen Dodson, Daniela Baugh, Lipscomb University; Avery Roland, University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Sara Edmonds, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Hannah Pinson York, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt)
• Advancing Building Energy Retrofit Industry through Engaged Scholarship (Mahsa Safari, Opinion Dynamics; Somayeh Asadi, Penn State University)
• Localized Engineering in Displacement: An Alternative Model for Out-of-School Youth and Refugee Students to Engineer their own Solutions for their own Communities (Jennifer DeBoer, Dhinesh Radhakrishnan, Purdue University; Claudio Freitas, Youngstown State University)
• Partnerships Compass: Guiding Questions For Equitable And Impactful Engineering Community-Engaged Learning (Eric Reynolds Brubaker, Marsie Trego, Shoshanah Cohen, Stanford University; Kofi Taha, MIT)

The issue's review cycle relied upon the input and efforts of many current and emeritus Lehigh faculty and students, including Kelly Austin, Paolo Bocchini, Beth Dolan, Lauren Fosbenner, Lori Herz, Sabrina Jedlicka, Don Morris, Steve Pessiki, Sarah Stanlick, Todd Watkins, Rick Weisman, and Bill Whitney.

The ASEE's Advances in Engineering Education special issue on “impact-focused education,” Volume 10, Issue 1, 2022, was published electronically on March 7, 2022, to https://advances.asee.org.