NEH grant promotes integration of humanities and engineering at Purdue

 

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $150,000 grant to faculty members in the School of Engineering Education, Purdue School of Language and Cultures (SLC) and Global Engineering Alliance for Research and Education (GEARE) program for a curricular initiative that integrates the humanities and engineering.

 

In recent years, the humanities have been relegated in many contexts as irrelevant to real-world events and problems. Yet at the same time, there are calls for enhanced historical knowledge, cross-cultural experience, abilities to solve environmental and social problems worldwide, and an understanding of diverse people for professionals who work in engineering, technology, science, medicine and business. These knowledge sets and skills are particularly relevant for engineering students who will be tasked with solving complex and situated problems in their professional roles.

 

This curricular project will open new opportunities for engineering students to explore the liberal arts by integrating the humanities and engineering in coursework that offers experiential learning opportunities and also in an invited speaker series.