Erhardt Graeff has received national recognition from the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) for innovative engineering education practices. He is one of twenty-nine engineering faculty across the US to receive this honor.
Erhardt Graeff, associate professor of social and computer science at Olin College.
The Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development Program highlights entrepreneurially minded learning as central to the development of engineering graduates prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world.
“I’m honored to be named an Engineering Unleashed fellow,” says Graeff. “Olin’s long and productive relationship with KEEN inspired me to participate in their 'Integrating Curriculum with Entrepreneurial Mindset' workshop last summer. I’m looking forward to creating new curriculum this year on civic virtue and character development and sharing it with my fellow engineering educators."
Each year, the program attracts more than 300 engineering and STEM faculty who create resources that will help them and intercollegiate colleagues advance the mission to integrate the entrepreneurial mindset into practices that benefit their students, their institutions, and greater society. As part of the workshop, participants identify potential projects and hone their ideas with coaches for up to one year, after which select faculty are nominated and named Engineering Unleashed Fellows.
Graeff’s fellowship project is connected to a recent grant from the Wake Forest ECI program. He plans to use the $10,000 institutional award from the Kern Family Foundation to create a module on civic virtue that can be adapted for use in other engineering programs. He intends to share the work through the Engineering Unleashed website and engineering education conferences.
“There is a clear need to prepare engineers who can effectively navigate the complex social and ethical dimensions of their work and contribute to the common good,” says Graeff.
"Students are asking faculty how they can live their values as engineers. There is an urgency in undergraduate engineering for initiatives that intentionally cultivate character, civic-mindedness, and ethical reasoning.”
The Engineering Unleashed initiative is powered by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), a partnership of 70 colleges and universities dedicated to graduating engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset so they can create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work.