Lori Czerwionka
Please join me in congratulating Lori Czerwionka, associate professor of Spanish and linguistics, for serving as co-director on a curricular project that received a $35,000 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The “Integrating the Humanities and Global Engineering” project aims to expand the roles of language and cultural studies in Purdue’s undergraduate engineering training, thereby better preparing students for careers in and related to global engineering. The integrated humanistic-engineering project builds upon the existing Global Engineering Alliance for Research and Education program, which requires students to participate in study abroad and international internships as part of their course of study. According to the project summary, the proposed curricular approach will “enhance students’ intercultural and second-language communication skills, historical and cultural knowledge, and creative- and critical-thinking skills” and increase “the effectiveness of the global engineering degree’s experiential learning component.”
Included in the proposal are a new global engineering course that will analyze hypothetical engineering cases using culturally aware and historically informed methods; an individualized second-language learning opportunity for GEARE program participants; a speaker series featuring experts in research and industry that will emphasize the importance of a humanities-based knowledge set; and pre- and post-workshops for students doing internships abroad that will focus on assessing and improving the students’ language and intercultural skills.
Lori’s co-director on the project is Eric Nauman, professor of mechanical engineering, while School of Languages and Cultures head Jen William, GEARE coordinator Joe Tort, and Francisco Montalvo, a Ph.D. candidate in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, are all members of the project’s planning committee.
Congratulations Dr. Czerwionka and committee members!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts