Pope Francis Weighs in on Environment

Posted by & filed under Engineering, Ethics, Pedagogy, Relevancy.

On May 24. 2015, Pope Francis issued, “Laudato Sí,” a 184-page encyclical letter calling upon Catholics to stop global warming and save the environment. The majority of American universities have probably noticed the letter, but not given it much thought. However, that’s not the case if you work at a Catholic university or college. The… Read more »

Retention Makes My Brain Hurt

Posted by & filed under Complex systems, Engineering, Modelling.

  We all know that STEM retention is not a simple, linear system that can be fixed instantly with one or two modifications. A brave team of international researchers has taken on the challenge of modeling what the system of STEM retention might look like using data from first-year engineering students at a European university…. Read more »

Tinkering at the Library

Posted by & filed under Engineering, Underrepresented Minorities, Women.

Most of us have heard about self-efficacy being key to academic persistence. But have you heard about “tinkering and technical self-efficacy”? These are important aspects of self-efficacy for engineering students. Unfortunately, there are large populations of potential engineering students who lack belief in their competence in these areas. In a 1997 study of STEM students… Read more »
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