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Race, Veteran, and Engineering Identities among Black Male Student Veterans

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Conference

2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity

Location

Crystal City, Virginia

Publication Date

April 14, 2019

Start Date

April 14, 2019

End Date

April 22, 2019

Conference Session

Track: Special Topic - Identity Technical Session 13

Tagged Topics

Diversity and Special Topic: Identity

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--31784

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/31784

Download Count

344

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Paper Authors

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Catherine E. Brawner Research Triangle Educational Consultants

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Catherine E. Brawner is President of Research Triangle Educational Consultants. She received her Ph.D.in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from NC State University in 1996. She also has an MBA from Indiana University (Bloomington) and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She specializes in
evaluation and research in engineering education, computer science education, and technology education. Dr. Brawner is a founding member and former treasurer of Research Triangle Park Evaluators, an American Evaluation Association affiliate organization and is a member of the American Educational Research Association and American Evaluation Association, in addition to ASEE. Dr. Brawner is also an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT) and, in that role, advises computer science and engineering departments on diversifying their undergraduate student population. She remains an active researcher, including studying academic policies, gender and ethnicity issues, transfers, and matriculation models with MIDFIELD as well as student veterans in engineering. Her evaluation work includes evaluating teamwork models, broadening participation initiatives, and S-STEM and LSAMP programs.

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Susan M. Lord University of San Diego

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Susan M. Lord received a B.S. from Cornell University and the M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include inclusive pedagogies, electronics, optoelectronics, materials science, first year engineering courses, feminist and liberative pedagogies, engineering student persistence, and student autonomy. Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Lord is a fellow of the ASEE and IEEE and is active in the engineering education community including serving as General Co-Chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, on the FIE Steering Committee, and as President of the IEEE Education Society for 2009-2010. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education. She and her coauthors were awarded the 2011 Wickenden Award for the best paper in the Journal of Engineering Education and the 2011 and 2015 Best Paper Awards for the IEEE Transactions on Education. In Spring 2012, Dr. Lord spent a sabbatical at Southeast University in Nanjing, China teaching and doing research.

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Catherine Mobley Clemson University

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Catherine Mobley, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at Clemson University. She has over 30 years experience in project and program evaluation and has worked for a variety of consulting firms, non-profit agencies, and government organizations, including the Rand Corporation, the American Association of Retired Persons, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Since 2004, she been a member of the NSF-funded MIDFIELD research project on engineering education; she has served as PI or Co-PI on several research projects related to engineering education, including projects on transfer students, student student veterans in engineering, and Black students in engineering.

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Michelle M. Camacho University of San Diego

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Michelle Madsen Camacho is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of San Diego. She formerly held two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California, San Diego, at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Fluent in both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, her research uses theories from interdisciplinary sources including cultural studies, critical race, gender and feminist theories. Central to her work are questions of culture, power and inequality. She is affiliated faculty with the Department of Ethnic Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Latin American Studies.

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Joyce B. Main Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3984-533X

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Joyce B. Main is Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She holds a Ph.D. in Learning, Teaching, and Social Policy from Cornell University, and an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Abstract

Using interviews with seven Black Student Veterans in Engineering (BSVEs) at three predominantly White institutions (PWIs), we explore how the identities of Black, Male, Veteran, and Engineering student are enacted during their undergraduate engineering experience. We approach this study informed by multiple dimensions of identity using an intersectional lens to answer three research questions: 1) Why did BSVEs join the military? 2) Why did BSVEs choose engineering? and 3) How do BSVEs enact their veteran, engineering, and racial identities while in school? We find that family influences, a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves, and economics were factors in BSVEs’ decision to join the military. Technical jobs in the military that often included exposure to engineers and engineering problems led them to the belief that as engineers, they would be able to solve many of the problems they faced while maintaining military hardware. All seven BSVEs claimed that their military and engineering identities were central, or nearly so, to their core identity. Of the five who mentioned racial identity, all indicated that it was central to their core being, often intersecting with their male identity to an inseparable identity as Black Males.

Brawner, C. E., & Lord, S. M., & Mobley, C., & Camacho, M. M., & Main, J. B. (2019, April), Race, Veteran, and Engineering Identities among Black Male Student Veterans Paper presented at 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity , Crystal City, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--31784

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