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Browsing by Author "Riley, Donna M."

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Engineering as Technology of Technology and the Subjugated Practice
    Shih, Po-Jen (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-22)
    Two sets of concerns have motivated and sustained the research in my dissertation. First, modern ideas of technology and engineering have been over-represented by their dominant forms: that technology is all about progress and the more advanced "high" technology and that engineering chiefly concerns quantity, efficiency, problem-solving, and "better" machines. Second, these potent values in technology and engineering, as a conceptual whole, tend to reinforce each other and create conditions conducive to its sociocultural reproduction that discounts and subjugates viable alternative practices. My dissertation draws on both historical and philosophical approaches to the question of technology and engineering. My historical-linguistic study looks for the historical meanings of the two words—technology and engineering–in connection with their modern counterparts and discusses the social values and conditions that shaped the dynamics of their early development to understand and deconstruct their modern dominant representation. The analysis of ancient writings locates precedent for dominant engineering practice in ancient siege engines and military engineering, where qualities such as quantity, power, superiority, and ingenuity reinforced each other at the critical times of high-stakes siege warfare. I demonstrate how these interlocking qualities became the ideological basis for an enduring historical-conceptual structure of the dominant ideas of engineering that, despite strikingly different social contexts, continues to the present and limits the diversity of knowledge and participants. Returning back to the present, I develop a philosophical critique of contemporary engineering as "technology of technology," in that modern dominant engineering practice becomes technically provincial yet socially ambitious for our personal and institutional technical practice. In this process, certain practices in engineering, including communication, ethical reasoning, empathy, etc., have been marginalized and become what I call the "subjugated technical practice." By identifying the specific criteria and values that systematically discount and exclude the subjugated technical practice in different aspects, my analysis highlights and validates the latter's extraordinary qualities that contribute no less significantly to the success of engineering practice. Finally, to explore the possibilities of substantive policy changes, I propose theory and practice under the heading of "critical reflexive technology" and call for radical changes and critical participation from within and beyond engineering.
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    Institutional Counter-surveillance using a Critical Disability Studies Lens
    Svyantek, Martina V. (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-27)
    This study examines policy and procedure documents related to Disability at 3 U.S. institutions of higher education over a 25-year time frame. Policy and procedure documents are the foundation that govern how institutions "handle" Disability, outlining expectations and guidelines for providing services and establishing bureaucratic channels used to determine who has access to those services. This research employs a comparative case study mixed methods approach. The found documents and their online contexts are analyzed according to four qualities: findability, cohesion, consistency, and transparency. A document's findability refers to the ability of a user to locate the original document, and a document's cohesion, consistency, and transparency, refer to respectively where, what, and how these documents persist from their original creation date. As I collected these documents, I constructed comparative matrices to track these qualities within and across three different universities. The initial findability of documents demonstrates two key results: 1) during the overall 1990– 2015 time frame, there was a marked change in the availability of materials in a digital format, and 2) the emergence of a way to describe documents via the phrase "Does Not Exist." These materials definitively did not exist prior to a given time frame, but later versions of such documents included an earlier start date. Cohesion results indicate that the documents most likely to be presented in a single source were broadly usable to a large portion of the university population: the general student body. Consistency results address a major issue with the document search: while these materials were likely to exist, at each of these institutions and time frames (barring the DNE documents), they are very difficult to track down. Transparency across found, single-source documents was ubiquitous; if it could be found, it had searchable text. Beyond the findings of my document collection, I created two major products as a result of this dissertation work: key recommendations for different stakeholder groups and a curated exhibit of VT-specific materials collected for this study.
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    MAKER: An Ethnography of Maker and Hacker Spaces Achieving Diverse Participation
    Riley, Donna M.; McNair, Lisa D.; Masters, Sheldon (ASEE, 2017-06)
    Some have hailed the emergence of maker spaces as an opportunity to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, engaging participants in open, creative, and supportive spaces for learning and applying practical STEM knowledge. Others have questioned the potential of these spaces, as many maker and hacker spaces seem to be enacting certain norms that are more conducive to participation of white, male, middle-class, able-bodied hobbyists. Nonetheless, there are spaces noted for participation of homeless makers, women, people of color, and people with different kinds of abilities. This project considers how diverse maker spaces are conceived, constructed and operated to actively involve groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM, and collectively identify practices that can inform the design and operation of campus and community maker or hacker spaces that presently struggle to achieve diversity. The research employs ethnographic methods and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to characterize spaces in terms of their physical and linguistic artifacts. Here we report results from preliminary research examining online and published artifacts from our cohort of diverse maker spaces in preparation for direct observations beginning in summer 2017. Research questions explored through this first phase of the project include: (1) What practices and artifacts do participants in diverse maker and hacker spaces employ to establish and maintain environments that are diverse and inclusive? (2) What does the discourse in diverse maker and hacker spaces reveal about how meaning and value are co-constructed around identity, creativity, and the culture of production / the production of culture in engineering? (3) What best practices emerge from diverse maker and hacker spaces, and how can these translate to design or transformation of existing maker spaces on campuses and in communities?
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    Proselytizing Problem-Solving:The Religious and Secular Values of Engineering for Good
    Kleine, Marie Mella Stettler (Virginia Tech, 2021-02-02)
    Over the last 20 years, "engineering for good" has grown into a widespread phenomenon premised on the belief that engineers can and should combine technical expertise with the desire to make positive change. In the United States and abroad, many organizations conduct projects that enroll over ten thousand engineering students, faculty, and professionals. These engineers pursue their "doing good" efforts in the context of the history of Christian missions and colonialism, failed development efforts, and often competing individual and institutional values. These individual and institutional values are entangled in religious analogies and engineers' desire to fit into an overwhelmingly "secularized" profession. Given these nuanced dynamics, what do engineers mean when they say they want to "do good"? In this dissertation, I ask, what is engineering for good? Further, how do different individual and institutional values impact what engineering for good is and does? To answer these questions, I use three case studies of engineers for good being trained in institutions of higher education: Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Baylor University, and University of San Diego (USD)—a public (secular), Baptist, and Catholic university, respectively. I connect the training and practice of engineers for good to three larger social, cultural, and political movements—international development, humanitarian service, and social justice. I argue that engineers for good navigate complex dimensions of assessing and assigning need as they decide what it means to do their work well. These new humanitarians do not simply engage in pro bono efforts done for new users that cannot afford their traditional services. They are creating a new type of engineering to address newly recognized forms of need. Those involved in engineering for good redefine what engineering can and should be used for by drawing on larger values to pursue their purpose and reconcile this purpose with their professional identity. I conclude by showing what the formation of the engineering for good movement illuminates about good engineering. A close examination of the movement reveals engineers reformulating their relationship to notions of technological and moral progress. I show how differing values impact engineering pedagogy and practice. I argue that these engineers are remaking development, their identities, and the engineering profession itself. These findings are core not only to science and technology studies scholars, but historians, political scientists, religious studies scholars, and practitioners—in academia, the non-profit sector, and government aid work— just trying to "do good."
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    Understanding Transfer Student Pathways to Engineering Degrees: A Multi-Institutional Study Based in Texas
    Ogilvie, Andrea Marie (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-26)
    In recent decades, recruitment and retention efforts to meet workforce demands and broaden participation in colleges of engineering across the country have focused primarily on catering to the needs of first-year, traditional age college students who matriculate from high school into 4-year institutions. While these efforts have moved the needle on enrollment and retention for undergraduate students in engineering, growth and improvement measures have started to taper in recent years. To meet current and future workforce demands for more STEM professionals in the United States, we must be creative about how to move beyond this ceiling effect; and, great potential exists among the growing population of students who begin their pursuit of a higher education at institutions other than 4-year public/private colleges. The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of engineering transfer students and their experiences at both sending and receiving institutions. Part of a larger mixed methods research investigation, this study draws on survey data from a sample of 1,070 engineering transfer students who transferred to one of four 4-year Texas institutions as new engineering students between 2007 and 2014. Research sites include four of the top ten producers of U.S. Hispanic/Latino engineers; and the framework for transfer student capital was used to organize this study's data collection and analytical plan. Structured as a manuscript style dissertation, this investigation offers a synthesis of recent literature on engineering transfer students and yields important findings on engineering transfer student movement through the higher education system at two distinct phases: 1) at the beginning of their higher education pathways in an investigation of students' reasons for starting at another institution and factors that influence their decisions to transfer; and 2) at the phase immediately following transfer in an investigation of the transition experience for students who transfer to a 4-year institution. For each phase, I identify emergent constructs and explore differences across subgroups of engineering transfer students (i.e., type of institution - selective versus open enrollment; type of transfer pathway - lateral versus vertical; student status as Hispanic/Latino; student status as first generation). This research joins and expands the small body of literature on engineering transfer students and brings data to higher education administrators so they can make more informed adjustments to existing institutional policies and practices that impact students as they transfer to engineering programs at 4-year institutions. Last, findings from this study also advance the current state of community college research on transfer students more generally.