Strategic Vision

FY 2023-28

Updated: 5/2024


Research and Innovation

Giving engineering students the tools they need to succeed in today’s changing technical world, and enabling them to proactively seek ethical engineering solutions by applying the wide-ranging scope of critical and creative thought fostered in humanities disciplines.

Shaping ethical engineers and fostering analytical reflection.

Vision

The Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics & Society serves as the catalyst for reflecting on the ethical and humanistic implications of decisions College of Engineering and Applied Science students will make in their careers as engineers. As a program in applied humanities, we engage CEAS students, faculty, staff, and alumni in a dialog of self, education, career, culture, and society. The Herbst Program facilitates an informed and rigorous college-wide conversation regarding fundamental questions of purpose, meaning, ethics, and responsibility. The program will continue to take an active role in situating the college’s mission, values, and practices within the larger humanistic discourse.

In the next five years, we will:

  • Further promote the integration of ethics throughout the college’s mission and its understanding of being an engineer. 
  • Expand our curriculum and offer courses that speak to ethics in particular. Our courses will spark discussions on how to humanize innovation and how science and technology impact lives in local and global communities.
  • Encourage faculty members to engage in faculty discussion groups and pedagogical retreats.
  • Collaborate with faculty from other colleges (i.e. Leeds School of Business) to bring innovative ideas and new angles of leadership/entrepreneurship to our classrooms.
  • Bring more global experience opportunities to CEAS students.

To enable this vision, we will:

  • Co-teach and collaborate with CEAS faculty outside of Herbst.
  • Promote the Moulakis Lecture Series on Responsible Engineering speaker series.
  • Encourage Herbst Fellows to share their research in publications and presentations to CEAS faculty and the community at large.
  • Raise funds to send research and teaching faculty to national and international conferences and expositions. This will include conferences on pedagogy in STEM education.
  • Create interdisciplinary spaces/work groups within CEAS for ethical and socially engaged engineering practices.
  • Support engineering faculty by acting as ethics consultants for grant projects, either as members of specific grant teams or as editorial support for ethics/social engagement proposals.
  • Strengthen our partnerships with the Office of International Education, our partners in Italy (Accent Global Learning), and Xi’an Jiaotong University/Shaanxi, China, and seek out potential new partnerships.​

Education

The Herbst Program commits to cultivating a collaborative atmosphere that nurtures engineers with a focus on ethics, resilience, critical thinking, and creativity.

Nurturing diversity in learning: the Herbst Program is committed to lifelong success and inclusivity. 

Vision

Herbst faculty come from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. We cultivate student success by laying the foundation for life-long learning through wide-ranging approaches. Our commitment extends to diverse delivery methods and avenues for educational involvement that will enrich and augment learning outcomes in and beyond the classroom. Our pedagogy is committed to supporting first-generation, underrepresented, and historically marginalized students.

In the next five years, we will:

  • Support the Engineering Connections residential community by continuing its work beyond the first year to foster a robust engineering community and ensure student success until graduation. 
  • Embrace pedagogical innovations.
  • Encourage student learning by fostering curiosity, enthusiasm, and critical and analytical thinking in the classroom and beyond.

To enable this vision, we will:

  • Enhance our courses to consider ethical dilemmas posed by the technological age.
  • Create a rubric that will set standards for teaching methods for various classroom settings.
  • Offer courses with particular focus on the history/philosophy of science and/or technology.
  • Increase the number of instructors in key areas to support the educational mission.
  • Reach more students by increasing seminar sections and lecture courses.
  • Strengthen and support the first-year residential experience through teaching and mentoring. Outside the classroom, Herbst faculty will be involved in offering Academic Interest Groups.
  • Continue to strengthen current partnerships across campus.
  • Collaborate with related ethics and social engagement groups in the Leeds Ethics and Social Sustainability Program.
  • Strengthen existing partnerships with the Engineering Honors/Engineering Leadership Programs to expand ethics education in established programs.
  • Support current and new Global Seminars and Global Intensives and collaborate with the Office of International Education.
  • Develop close ties with Counseling and Psychiatric Services and become a voice for student wellness in the college.

Inclusion

We are committed to fostering an environment where diversity is a key element, equity is upheld, and inclusion is woven into every aspect of our program, ensuring the full participation and success of every individual.

Embracing diversity, fostering cultural celebration and inclusive perspectives. 

Vision

In the Herbst Program, we appreciate diversity, celebrate different cultures, and encourage the exchange of diverse ideas and perspectives by modeling cultural awareness and highlighting the importance and validity of different perspectives in the classroom and beyond.

In the next five years, we will:

  • Expand our efforts to foster a learning environment that is mindful of justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  • Grow grant-funded faculty-led global summer programs to foster cultural awareness and empathy.
  • Strengthen our commitment to international activities.

To enable this vision, we will:

  • Develop a robust IDEA plan and appropriate actions to implement it. For this we will include both faculty and student participation. This will also include a target strategy for faculty, student, and staff.
  • Seek additional funding so all students have an opportunity to participate in Herbst Global Seminars, regardless of financial challenges.
  • Strengthen our courses for international students and encourage faculty to participate in cultural trainings offered through ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä International Student and Scholar Services.
  • Expand current partnerships with the BOLD Center and the Office of Undergraduate Education to guarantee academic success through mentorship programs, buddy programs, and/or international student ambassadors.
  • Thoroughly examine ENES curricula with a focus on identifying ways to incorporate considerations of justice, inclusion, diversity, and equity.
  • Encourage faculty to participate in the DEI Impact Grant program sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
  • Collaborate with campus/college experts to create a suitable rubric for evaluating the success of our faculty in matters of DEI.
  • Create a support program for faculty members to conduct inclusion activities.