Panel — What is global engineering education for?: The making of International Educators

Abstract

Leading educators who have made risky career commitments to international engineering education have often experienced challenges beyond the boundaries of home countries that made them critical analysts of their work and identities. This panel introduces the unique research process that helped sixteen educators make visible how their goals and motivations extend far beyond the commonly invoked image of global competence as a new skill. Short presentations follow from five contributors to the recently-published What is Global Engineering Education For?: The Making of International Educators. Their accounts of struggles and successes highlight the difficulties in moving international and global engineering education from the margins to the core of engineering curricula. Subsequent open discussion invites commentary from all present about strategies for maximizing the extent to which students gain access to international and global engineering education and genuinely confront and rethink assumptions and career trajectories born in home countries.