Undergraduate STEM Students and Community Engagement Activities: Initial Findings from an Assessment of Their Concern for Public Well-being

摘要

In response to findings from the Cech study on the "Culture of Disengagement" at American engineering institutions, much unease emerged regarding how future engineers might not be developing a mindset that places the public's well-being as a foremost priority. The study indicated that engineering programs negatively impact the attitude that undergraduate students have toward the public. This, of course, could have an important bearing on the type of professionals that an academic institution is sending out into the world and what they think their ethical obligations are to the public. Many explanations are possible for why students become "disengaged", including practical worries about obtaining a job or paying off debt from college. Against this theoretical backdrop, our research team is in the process of investigating what activities may help to combat, or at least mitigate, the trend unearthed by Cech. More specifically, we are seeking to identify which specific facets of community engagement (CE) activities, including service learning (SL), contribute to or fortify the concern that engineering and other STEM students have for the well-being of the public. Our team has embarked on a five-year grant funded project to study the effects of a broad range of community engagement activities, both inside and outside of the classroom.