Recent News
The write stuff: FACETS project already having impacts in the classroom
September 7, 2021
Svihla awarded collaborative NSF EAGER grant
May 11, 2020
Canavan publishes paper on representation of individuals with disabilities
May 11, 2020
Writing-In-The-Disciplines work praised on front page of The Daily Lobo
May 11, 2020
News Archives
Chemical Engineering faculty win Best Diversity Paper Award at American Society for Engineering Education Conference
June 27, 2017 - FACETS
Dr. Svihla, Dr. Datye
A paper presented by faculty members Vanessa Svihla, Abhaya Datye, and Jamie Gomez was chosen from over 1700 submissions as the Best Diversity Paper at the 2016 American Society for Engineering Education Conference. Dr. Svihla, who was invited to present the paper at a plenary session at the 2017 conference in Columbus, Ohio, focused on the unique strengths New Mexico students bring to their engineering coursework. Svihla shared with the audience that first generation college attendees were more likely to agree that designing is a learning process. Also, the team's research identified groups of students who understood that constraints are always present in the design process and rated their own knowledge of engineering and ability to succeed as low. Remarkably, these groups of students were more likely to demonstrate the work process of an experienced designer. This work on the myriad assets diverse students bring to the classroom and to engineering work provides the foundation for the NSF-funded FACETS project which explores approaches to retain and encourage these skilled students.
Watch Vanessa Svihla’s 2017 American Society for Engineering Education’s Plenary Talk “Mapping Assets for Diverse Groups for Chemical Engineering Design Problem Framing Ability”.
June 27th, 2017
