Revolution in CBEE: Connecting the Dots between Inclusivity and Learning

Supported by an NSF RED grant, the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering (CBEE) at Oregon State University seeks to create: (1) a culture where everyone in the CBEE community feels a sense of value and belonging, and (2) a learning environment that prompts students and faculty to meaningfully relate curricular and co-curricular activities and experiences to each other and to connect both with professional practice. For brevity, we label the first goal "equity and inclusivity" and the second "meaningful, consequential learning." In this paper, we encapsulate our work in this last year (no cost extension) of the grant through the lens of our 17 published or in preparation journal articles. Research in equity and inclusivity has had two foci, unit climate and organizational culture. It has addressed themes of peer relations, the relation between epistemology and climate, and conceptualizations of oppression and privilege. Research in meaningful, consequential learning has focused on activities and assessments that align schooling and engineering practice, and on active learning in studios. As we worked on this project, the team created a shared understanding that equity and inclusivity and meaningful, consequential learning were not separate issues but rather mutually constitutive. This interplay is illustrated in a set of papers around aspects of inclusive teaming. We have described four guiding principles in the published paper by Koretsky et al. (2018). We are building on these principles to provide a theoretical framework in the upcoming manuscripts.