Comparing oranges versus grapes as a metaphor of the nurse+engineer

Oerther, Daniel B.; Oerther, Sarah

doi:10.1111/jocn.16209

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Finally, the caring nature of environmental engineering also has been described previously through a comparison of the sub-discipline of environmental engineering to the profession of nursing; in particular a growing body of evidence supports the view that the practice of environmental engineering benefits from a grounding in the theory of care developed by the profession of nursing (Oerther, 2017;Oerther et al, 2020;Oerther and Glasgow, 2021;Oerther and Oerther, 2022).…”

Section: Environmental Engineers Self-identify As Members Of a Caring...mentioning

confidence: 57%

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

2022

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Among the sub-disciplines of engineering, environmental engineering is distinctive in three aspects. First, descriptions of the profession of environmental engineering emphasize that environmental engineers solve problems to prevent harm, which typically is an important motivation for taking a job in care work. Second, the percentage of degrees awarded to women is highest for environmental among all sub-disciplines of engineering (i.e., 53.3% of bachelor's degrees, 46.3% of master's degrees, and 43.6% of doctoral degrees in environmental engineering conferred in 2020 were awarded to women). Third, median salaries for environmental engineerscontrolling for other variablesare lowest among engineering subdisciplines (i.e., $82,036 per year in 2019), despite high levels of educational attainment and training. Our analysis of environmental engineers working in the United States strongly suggests that the profession of environmental engineering is highly susceptible to what is known as the care penalty. The care penalty is a function of market dynamics, which tend to undervalue work that generates substantial unpriced benefits for others. The care penalty often is observed in jobs characterized by high levels of intrinsic motivation, such as concern for human welfare.Additional data would be useful to further evaluate the care penalty in environmental engineering in other countries. To address the care penalty, we do not suggest that environmental engineers should become less caring. Rather environmental engineers should be aware of this potential economic risk and seek to mitigate the care penalty in two specific ways.First environmental engineers should encourage life-cycle principles and environmental fullcost accounting in order to increase fungibility among different measures of the components of the triple bottom line of people (i.e., human welfare), planet (i.e., planetary health), and prosperity (i.e., financial gain). Second, environmental engineers should clearly demonstrate the unique contributions that technically skilled commitments to human welfare can generate.We suggest that a greater awareness of these issues could build on and strengthen growing public concerns regarding environmental sustainability. Finally, we suggest that distinctive attributes of environmental engineering may prove critical to unlocking growth in the engineering workforce as care for human welfare and planetary health.

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Section: Environmental Engineers Self-identify As Members Of a Caring...mentioning

confidence: 57%

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

2022

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“…Community engagement is an important skill for engineers to acquire, and collaboration with other healthcare professions, such as nursing, is one practical approach [15,16]. Ideally, engineers would learn through hands-on experience how to perform community engagement following best practices as implemented in healthcare.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engagement in Practice: Promoting Environmental Health Literacy to Raise Awareness of Antibiotic Resistance

Oerther

2023 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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The process of how to engage with communities (i.e., community engagement) is an important skill for engineers to acquire, and the skill is well suited to experiential learning (i.e., learning through doing). To educate engineers to perform community engagement, a module was developed and incorporated as part of three different engineering courses, namely: 1) science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) diplomacy (dual-level graduate and undergraduate, elective); 2) public health engineering (dual-level graduate and undergraduate, elective); and 3) biological principles of environmental engineering (graduate only, required course). These courses were offered at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and through Missouri Online distance education. The primary audience included students of environmental engineering as well as students of civil engineering and architectural engineering and students of nursing. The module included an overview of community engagement, gathering community information, co-identification of a problem and a solution, and testing the solution.While many forms of community engagement often aim to unearth problems and codesign solutions in a partnership between the researcher/scholar and the community/stakeholders, in this module the process of community engagement was preseeded with the problem that a lack of environmental health literacy among the general public is a significant contributor to the spread of antibiotic resistance (i.e., resistance to antibiotics spreads among communities where individuals lack awareness, scientific understanding, and access to ways to prevent the spread of resistant bacteria). The preseeded problem was offered by the United States Department of State as part of a Diplomacy Lab exercise. Thus, students engaged with representatives of the State Department in place of direct engagement with community members. As a pre-seeded solution to this problem, the State Department requested that students develop infographics. Subsequently, as part of additional community engagement, students used these infographics to educate individual community members about antibiotic resistance. Thus, by the strictest definition of "community engagement", this module represents a variation from the true sense of "best practice". None the less, over a period of eight years, a total of 130 students have participated in a variation of community engagement by completing this module incorporated into three different courses, which were offered a total of 17 different times.Lessons learned include: 1) although hesitant at first, many engineering students eventually recognized the benefit of community engagement to promote environmental health literacy; 2) developing infographics was a challenge for engineering students (i.e., specifically the creation of "graphics" was a challenge); and 3) the results of community assessment with student-designed materials were similar to the results reported in the general scientific literature suggesting that students of engineerin...

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“…Environmental engineers working with nurses shows promise to undertake all four of the pillars of Boyer's model of scholarship including discovery, integration, engagement, and the science of teaching and learning [20]. The differences among the professions of nursing (i.e., imagined to be similar to slices of an orange) and of engineering (i.e., imagined to be similar to individual grapes in a cluster) provide unique opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration with each discipline benefitting from the interactions [21].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Workshop Result: Environmental Engineering Faculty Learning Boyer's Model of Scholarship

Oerther

2023 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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As part of the 2021 (delayed until 2022 due to COVID) biennial conference of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), a preconference workshop on the topic of Ernst Boyer's four-pillar model of academic scholarship in higher education (i.e., discovery, integration, engagement, and the science of teaching and learning) was delivered to 32 workshop participants. The workshop had three objectives, namely: 1) raising awareness to Boyer's model of scholarship in higher education; 2) applying Boyer's model to evaluate participants' own work; and 3) leading institutional change by sharing Boyer's model back home. To achieve these objectives, four activities were undertaken, including: 1) pre-conference review of educational materials introducing Boyer's model (view a video and share on a discussion board); 2) on-site expert testimony clarifying Boyer's model (brief lectures by four speakers); 3) onsite hands-on, small-group work (employing career cartography to achieve Boyer's Model); and 4) post-conference sharing, expert-coaching, and peer-encouragement as workshop participants engaged back home. Assessment of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of workshop participants was undertaken using an on-site, anonymous, voluntary readiness assessment test (RAT) as well as an on-site, anonymous, voluntary comprehension assessment test (CAT0), administered immediately preceding and following the on-site portion of the workshop, respectively. To support the long-term adoption of Boyer's Model, the workshop moderator provided voluntary mentoring/coaching to workshop participants in the months following the completion of the on-site portion of the workshop. The value of this long-term mentoring/coaching was assessed through the collection of additional feedback identifying the Best, Worst, and ways to Improve the workshop. The purpose of this paper is to share: 1) workshop content and format that could be used by other conveners of similar workshops; 2) results of the analysis of the RAT, CAT0, and additional feedback; and 3) the authors' experience with mentoring/coaching workshop participants on Boyer's model of scholarship in higher education, which contribute to suggestions for an educational module that could be used to introduce Boyer's Model and career cartography to graduate students as well as early and mid-career faculty of environmental engineering.

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Comparing oranges versus grapes as a metaphor of the nurse+engineer

Cited by 8 publications

References 6 publications

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

Engagement in Practice: Promoting Environmental Health Literacy to Raise Awareness of Antibiotic Resistance

Workshop Result: Environmental Engineering Faculty Learning Boyer's Model of Scholarship

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