Challenging the Status-Quo: Teaching Anti-racist Design to Engineering Students

Logan Williams, Ian White, Alba Torrents, John Clay Elliott Johnson | Clark School, Keystone Program

Abstract

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is an inflection point in global history and culture. As such, it concentrates our attention on the histories of imperialism and colonialism rape, pillage, and enslavement that are the disreputable (and invisible) underpinnings of many of our modern democracies. Engineers are becoming more aware of these histories, and also how software, consumer products, instruments, and civil infrastructure have (often unacknowledged) power to include or exclude marginalized people. Yet, design courses are typically focused on collapsing complex industrial or governmental problems into something more manageable for a team of students to solve in one semester. It is tricky to ALSO try and figure out how to teach students to challenge the status quo. In the Clark School, several faculty are wrestling with this conundrum by collaborating with a consultant hired by the Keystone Program,

20Fall White BIOE 457 Biomedical Electronics & Instrumentation
21Spr Johnson ENCE 662 ENCE662 Introduction to Project Management
21Spr Torrents ENCE 411 ENCE411 Environmental Engineering Science

In our presentation, we each briefly discuss one thing we tried, how it went, and what we learned about teaching students to challenge the status quo. Our progress ranges from just getting started with background reading, to having implemented anti-racist design ethics in two semesters. Just as engineers' inattention to design inequality has been around a while, we believe that this is a long-term process for us and the Clark school, and we look forward to feedback from other instructors.

Presentation