Omari Booker’s mural: “The Writing’s on the Walls” depicts the Jefferson Street home of Elois Freeman in Nashville, Tennessee, highlighting layers of discriminatory policies inflicted on Mrs. Freeman and her neighbors.
about the initiative
Today, communities across the US and the world struggling with environmental contamination, catastrophic disasters, and day-to-day challenges such as economic, food, and water insecurity often find themselves on the receiving end of engineering research, technologies, and interventions that are carried out by academia, industry, government, and NGOs and are intended to produce technological solutions. Although engineers’ engagement with ‘the public’ is often welcomed and embraced, and the need for such engagement is likely to increase, it presents other challenges that go routinely unaddressed. Central among them is that engineers receive little-to-no training in community-engaged work and that the engineering profession neither recognizes community rights—involving, for example, informed consent, ownership of work, authorship, compensation, self-determination, and protection from harm—nor offers communities safe spaces to report problems and be heard without risking marginalization and retaliation. We believe that this needs to change.
2019 launch
On June 19, 2019, five frontline community members from Buffalo, N.Y.; Flint, Mich.; Isle de Jean Charles, La.; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Tampa, Fla. participated on a panel designated as a Distinguished Lecture by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). They presented their experiences with engineering interventions and their insights into types of community engagement they deem desirable and just. Building on existing work concerning community rights in community-engaged engineering projects, this event launched a focused conversation by a collaborative of affected residents, grassroots community organizations, engineers, engineering educators, scientists, social scientists, and NGOs about the need for engineering training requirements, standards of engagement, and oversight and accountability mechanisms.
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resources
We are compiling resources on three topics:
1. Community rights in community-based research,
2. Critical perspectives on the engineering profession’s relationship with ‘the public’ and especially marginalized communities and communities in crisis, and
3. Science labs with an explicit community-centered commitment.
Our lists are incomplete. We would appreciate your suggestions and critiques. We will, of course, credit you for your contributions. Thank you!