Thank you for your valuable comment. I am glad that you brought up your own experience.
I was thinking, Maybe, each discipline can have their own different meetings not just about funding and money but about how to fix these issues.

Hi Cindy,
I LOVED this post. Thank you for setting the example of what a caring educator looks like. That little boy might not have the best mom but that day he had the BEST principal!!!!

Thank you for your comment. I agree training for engineers and workers are all required. Meanwhile, social critiques can be placed in regulations of the large industrial companies.

Thank you, Gary. I am glad that there is a course about this topic and I hope it gets into the engineering curriculum one day.

I like your post and explaining about your major, especially where you explained humanity. I hope engineering disciplines could be more involved with humanities.
Thank you for your post.

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Nice post Susan. I went through the same as you during my undergraduate career. Even though my classes size were about 50 students, i was never able of making many friends because my career goals were completely different from them. Besides that, all my classes assignments were sorted into two exams (80%) and one project or homework (20%). In this sense, i did not have many chances to work on groups: “And yet we isolate students instead of connecting them”

Hey Maha! Thanks for sharing. It is nice to see that this class has had a good impact on how you see teaching. I guess this course is a small step we are taking to make a difference as college professors. For me too, this class has helped to understand and improve my teaching style. I will also keep continuously looking for strategies and ways to be a better professor.

I totally agree with your point about engineering classes and also teaching schedule, which is far away from social skills and improving emotional intelligence as well as logical intelligence. It is memorable to linking your background and personal experience to express your point and I hope more people follow your point of view especially in higher education.

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Hi everyone – thank you for all of the positive feedback and encouragement; it means a lot to me and I’ve really enjoyed hearing from all of you during our class discussions. We ARE the ones that will change academia for the better.

Aislinn – One of the roadblocks that I still struggle with is the significant pay cut I took for this job (50%). I had a great savings account thanks to a former employer that went public (and my subsequent stock option cash-out), that I was using to supplement my salary but it’s almost gone. I’m not sure what I’ll do then. Everyone keeps telling me that “it will all work out”. I suppose I’m hoping that it will and I’m waiting until it doesn’t to find a plan B.

Long live the New Engineering! Optimistic to hear, well, read, you bring more humility and humanity to the discipline!