What demographics should an engineering faculty reflect, and how might it acceptably differ in appearance from its students, the broader community, or the narrower complex of professionals and research consumers it purports to serve? Of course, we are horribly partial to our own DNA, but we can also reason through to the needs of society and put aside our personal bias. Similarly, our professional and research colleagues (perhaps most akin to us) should also be willing to defer to our expertise, when we select appropriate faculty fellows. While the broader community may not understand our expertise (disciplinary or collegial), they seem primarily concerned that we not raise their mill levy, seduce their sons and daughters, or (successfully) man the barricades. So long as we look reasonably penurious, chaste, and bungling, the broader community will probably, within limits, be less concerned with how we might otherwise appear. We will (hopefully) spend more time with our students than with either those who hire our students, or the general public and special interests that support our institutions. Consequently, the face we turn to our students is arguably more important. Faculty may need to defer to what their students (reasonably or not) consider conducive to their own learning experience. This may mean that faculty need to either expose or conceal erudition-may need to either fraternize or distance themselves from their students-and may need to look either sufficiently like or unlike their students to both teach and motivate.
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