[Themaintainers] Imaginary Projects for Making Maintainers: Engineering Education and an Ethics of Care

[Lee Vinsel]

Dear Maintainers,

I just want to thank everyone who took part in this discussion re:
engineering education. A lot of great ideas, and I learned quite a bit.

Andy and I will have some big announcements about The Maintainers,
including about this list in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Very best,

Lee

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:33 AM, Lee Vinsel <lee.vinsel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Maintainers,
>
> Andy Russell and I are writing an essay for a forthcoming edited volume
> titled _Can Innovators Be Made?_. As its title "Making Maintainers"
> suggests, our essay argues that our education system should focus as much
> or more effort on making essential maintainers. In this essay, we are
> focusing particularly on college engineering education, for several
> reasons, including because it is close to our experiences at Stevens
> Institute of Technology and elsewhere and because engineering education has
> become a hotbed of innovation-speak.
>
> In one section of our essay, we point out that undergraduate engineering
> degrees often culminate in senior design projects, which in recent decades
> have become framed in terms of innovation. And YET, many (most?) engineers
> will go onto work in Maintainers-y positions that will have little or
> nothing to do with innovation but will instead be centered on keeping
> complex technological systems going.
>
> For this reason, it may make sense to have engineering students also work
> on maintenance projects. I have thought up a couple: one in which students
> would work with physical plant managers at their college campuses; another
> focused on maintaining/conserving wetlands. But I also imagined that people
> on this list would have great ideas, which is why I'm coming to you.
>
> What do you think?
>
> I'm happy to hear all kinds of thoughts, including "That's a *terrible*
> idea!!!" But I'm primarily looking for hypothetical maintenance projects
> for college seniors.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Lee Vinsel
>
>
>
>
> --
> Assistant Professor and Director,
> Program on Science and Technology Studies
> College of Arts and Letters
> Stevens Institute of Technology
> Hoboken, NJ 07030
> leevinsel.com
> Twitter: @STS_News
>



-- 
Assistant Professor and Director,
Program on Science and Technology Studies
College of Arts and Letters
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, NJ 07030
leevinsel.com
Twitter: @STS_News
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