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Teaching-focused professional development (PD) programs offered at institutions of higher education (IHEs) are uniquely positioned to be levers of change that improve the quality of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in ways that broaden participation in STEM education, workforce development, and career pathways in the United States (US). PD programs and their potential to transform undergraduate STEM education, however, are understudied. This multiple-case study compares suites of PD programs offered at three IHEs in the US: a community college, an emerging research institution, and a research-intensive university. Each suite of PD programs is characterized in terms of program structure, implementation, and potential to transform undergraduate STEM education. The presented results illustrate the existence of a wide range of ways in which PD programs are structured and implemented. A key finding is a suite of PD programs offered at these IHEs has greater potential to transform undergraduate STEM education when embedded in an institutional culture that highly prioritizes the teaching enterprise. Lastly, the results are synthesized into an innovative framework. The framework can be used as a tool to design, implement, and evaluate PD programs so they have greater potential to transform undergraduate STEM education in the US.
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Pathways from Engineering Programs to Labor Unions
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, union density amongst engineering workers within the US hovers around 7%. Despite hundreds of thousands of US engineers participating in the labor movement, engineering education on labor unions has been virtually non-existent within US higher education engineering programs. US higher education engineering programs are critical junctures in the making of engineers that have long histories of ensnarement by corporate industries with vested interests in undermining organized labor. This stark and significant absence of labor education coupled with decades-long denunciations that many engineering professional societies have made to discourage participation of engineers in building labor unions and the labor movement interrupt engineers’ capacity to collectively leverage our power for safer, healthier, and more just workplaces and worlds. An imperative task in the (re)development of the US engineering workforce is to build and strengthen union density amongst engineers by expanding unionization pathways. This paper offers a preliminary report back on a broader engineering workforce development project to nurture relationships between an unorganized (i.e. non-union) engineering research center and organized labor. Herein, we uplift stories from union members describing their pathways from higher education engineering programs to labor unions. Group interview conversations illuminating these stories offer broader contextualization for the sparseness and rarity of the paths from engineering programs to labor unions. Dialogue from group interviews further pointed toward opportunities to expand unionization pathways for engineering workers.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2327420
- PAR ID:
- 10535943
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland, Oregon
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47831
