The Impact of Social Justice Case Studies on the Social Responsibility Attitudes of Jesuit Engineering Students
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Gail Baura, Ph.D., Engineering (gbaura@luc.edu)
Leanne Kallemeyn, Ph.D., School of Education Research Methodologies (lkallemeyn@luc.edu)

At the founding 2018 International Association of Jesuit Engineering Schools (IAJES) conference in Spain, Fr. Daniel Villanueva challenged 44 Deans and Directors to find a value proposition for IAJES. Can we demonstrate that our engineering curricula create engineering men and women for others? Loyola University Chicago’s (LUC) Director of Engineering Gail Baura proposes to demonstrate that teaching with social justice case studies increases the social responsibility attitudes of Jesuit engineering students. Four social justice case studies are an important component of the LUC engineering curriculum, whereby students analyze the impacts of various technologies on society and consider how their future work will affect others. Through the citizens rights vs. technology case study, groups of two to three sophomores investigate various subtopics of a case annually in their circuits course. Student assessments from this case study provide evidence for the evaluation of ABET Student Outcome (3). We hypothesize that the cases do help students make critical connections between their existing understandings of social responsibility from their core curriculum and their professional work and responsibilities as an engineer. With evaluator, Leanne Kallemeyn, we will determine how social responsibility attitudes of engineering students are affected by this social justice case study. Social responsibility attitudes will be measured using the validated Engineering Professional Responsibility Assessment (EPRA) instrument. The effect of this and another case study on EPRA will be evaluated at LUC and at two other Jesuit universities. Long-term objectives are to provide instructor and evaluator toolkits for Jesuit engineering institutions.