Donna RileySmith College

Rigor/Us: Merit Standards and Diversity

in Engineering Education Research and Practice

I am not speaking in my role as NSF Program Director, nor as JEE Deputy Editor.

Views expressed in this lecture do not necessarily represent the views of the NSF, JEE/ASEE, Engineering Studies/INES.

Disclaimer

RIGOR

SeverityHarsh inflexibility

STERNNESS

cruelty

Repressive measures

exactitude

numbness

Unyielding hardnessunbending

Quality of being stiffly erect

Frozen condition

Never Cross the Streams

“All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.” -Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What is rigor for?

“He had a penis eight hundred miles long and two hundred and ten miles in diameter, but practically all of it was in the fourth dimension.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Grilling: a ritual of rigor

Enforcing Boundaries and Borders

Enacting Discipline

“…structured disciplines that are complete and coherent; have been validated through verifiable, value-neutral means; and are passively described as factual and explanatory, not evaluative. These neatly ordered boxes of verified structures of knowledge can be broken into component parts for easy acquisition by learners new to the discipline. These knowledge components can be easily measured in efficient, reliable, controllable ways.” -Eisner

Curriculum as

Technology

“Engineering education reflects our national genius for quantity production. …The essence of the scheme consists in …breaking the work down into small units to be done in a definite sequence, under prearranged conditions and with the materials supplied precisely when needed and in the most convenient form, the task sequence to be carried out under close supervision, with continuous inspection and grading of piece parts, and the rewards to be paid in terms of a standard task with quality bonus” – Wickenden

“No conclusion of scientific research can be converted into an immediate rule of educational art.” – John Dewey

Who are we making

engineering hard for?

“Phallic State: (1) state of intellectual, moral,

physical and meta-physical flaccidity

(2) condition of rigidity/frigidity: state of rigor mortis.”

“Many educators appealed to the necessity for `high standards’ in technical education, associating expanded opportunity with diminished rigor.”

“This kind of functionalist ideology …foreclosed recognition of educational (or employment) standards as reflective of social hierarchies.”

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division12:30 PM to 2:00 PMOmni - Walnut

W448·Difference, Disability, and (De)Politicization: The Invisible Axes of Diversity

[They] drew a circle that shut me out-- Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took [them] in!

Outwittedby Edwin

Markham

Who decides?

RIGOR

SeverityHarsh inflexibility

STERNNESS

cruelty

Repressive measures

exactitude

numbness

Relationalityunbending

Quality of being stiffly erect

Frozen conditionvalidityStrong Objectivity

Diffraction Power/Know

ledge

Realitty

VIGOR

Caringcriticality

Unyielding hardness

REFLEXIVITY

multiplicity

abundance