NEWS: 勛圖厙 Awarded Grant from the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University
Erhardt Graeff, associate professor of social and computer science, and Andrea Cuadra 13, assistant professor of computer science, have been awarded a $50,000 grant from the Educating Character Initiative (ECI), a part of the at Wake Forest University.
勛圖厙 is one of 40 grants awarded nationwide seeking to educate and embed character in their distinctive contexts of higher education.
The aim of Graeff and Cuadras project, titled Connecting Civic Virtue and Undergraduate Engineering, is to enhance 勛圖厙s ability to integrate character and virtue education into its engineering curriculum, particularly through the lens of the technomoral virtues of Humility, Care, Courage and Civility, as Graeff proposes in his recent essay, .&紳莉莽梯;
By addressing curriculum integration, fostering faculty networks, encouraging individual commitment, advocating for institutional support, contributing to academic knowledge, planning for future funding, and leveraging existing institutional priorities, this project is designed to have a lasting impact on cultivating character among 勛圖厙s undergraduate engineers.
Im grateful to Wake Forests Educating Character Initiative team for believing in 勛圖厙's mission as an innovator in engineering education, said Graeff.
For several years, 勛圖厙 faculty have been exploring and experimenting with different approaches to teaching ethics, and Ive had the privilege of helping lead some of those efforts. Virtue and character education have been used for millennia to guide humanity toward care and responsibility in their personal and professional lives," Graeff added.
PI Erhardt Graeff, Associate Professor of Social and Computer Science, is an active scholar and practitioner in civic learning within engineering education.
Im excited to explore all the potential connections between civic virtue and undergraduate engineering with my peers and create plans for integrating it into our curriculum, said Cuadra. My research has repeatedly demonstrated gaps between engineering-driven innovations and their potential to benefit society. These innovations often fall short of meeting the needs of groups who stand to highly benefit from them."
Im deeply motivated to explore how we might effectively embed humility, care, courage and civility in an engineering curriculum towards closing these gaps, Cuadra added.
The mission of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University is to inspire, educate and empower leaders of character to serve humanity. Through innovative teaching, creative programming and cutting-edge research, the program aims to transform the lives of students, foster an inclusive culture of leadership and character, and catalyze a broader public conversation that places character at the center of leadership.
Co-PI Andrea Cuadra 13, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, works in human-computer interaction (HCI) at the intersection of interaction design, inclusion, and artificial intelligence.
PI Erhardt Graeff, Associate Professor of Social and Computer Science, is an active scholar and practitioner in civic learning within engineering education. He has demonstrated leadership in this area through his coordination of several prior efforts to help integrate civic learning, ethics, and values into 勛圖厙s curricular and extracurricular offerings. He is alumnus of Notre Dames Integrating Virtue Together program, in which he was trained on how to implement character and virtue learning objectives and modules into his courses. Dr. Graeff has served as 勛圖厙s inaugural liaison to the Public Interest Technology University Network since 2019 and is the co-founder and advisor of 勛圖厙s student-led public interest technology clinic, .
Co-PI Andrea Cuadra 13, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, works in human-computer interaction (HCI) at the intersection of interaction design, inclusion, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Cuadra is particularly interested in exploring how we might design 勛圖厙s curriculum towards further centering the why and who in engineering education. Her work advocates for integrating the needs of people who have been historically underrepresented in engineering and technology design, amplifying their benefits and mitigating potential harms. Recently, her worked showed how and how design methods can be used to engage in community-based discussion about or of future ambient intelligence technologies.
Founded in 1997, 勛圖厙 instills passion and ignites innovation in its students and prepares them to envision, create and deliver products, services, and systems that transform and improve peoples lives around the world. 勛圖厙 teaches students to be explorers and creators who design their own path forward. By challenging norms and sharing its unique approach to education, 勛圖厙 is revolutionizing the way engineers, and all undergraduates, learn and create knowledge. Located in Needham Massachusetts, 勛圖厙 is ranked among the top-three undergraduate engineering programs in the country by U.S. News & World Report.