S E C T I O N MEWS April 2002 • Anthropology News

experience reveals women's agency in surprisingways; and 3) women renouncers play an impor-tant role in their communities.

Audience participation in the discussion periodwas enthusiastic and challenging. Contrasts be-tween papers also allowed us to consider the waysin which the possibilities for women's agencymight be influenced by social class and by thefact that female renunciation is more institution-ally grounded in Jainism than in Hinduism. Forthe panelists, this was an exciting opportunity toengage with others working in similar areas!Vallely's Guardians of the Transcendent will appearfrom U of Toronto Press this spring, and Khandel-wal's Walking a Tightrope will be published soonby SUNY Press. There also was preliminary dis-cussion among participants of a possible editedvolume on female asceticism.

That this panel was a sequel to a session withlargely different panelists held in Oct at the U ofWisconsin's Annual Conference on South Asiasuggests the richness of new work in this area.Participants there (besides Ann Gold and MeenaKhandelwal) included Kalyani Devaki Menon(Syracuse U), Lisa Knight (Syracuse U) and KimGutschow (Brandeis U).

Please send items of interest to: Simon Coleman, Deptof Anthropology, Durham U, 43 Old Elvet, DurhamDH1 3HN, UK; s.m.coleman@durham.ac.uk.

Society for theAntfftrapiiifiiff of Work

DAVID GRIFFITH, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

This month's column, coming from Detroit, isdevoted to a current research effort of three of ourcolleagues. I would welcome responses to this fora possible issue of Anthropology Work Review.

Changing & Improving EngineeringEducation Culture

By Diane R Pawlowski (Wayne State U), MariettaBaba (Michigan State U) and Donald R Falkenburg(Wayne State U)

IntroductionThis research examines cultural aspects of aninnovative engineering education curriculum indevelopment by The Greenfield Coalition forNew Manufacturing Education. The Coalitionconsists of seven universities; seven manufactur-ing companies; the Society of Manufacturing En-gineers; and Focus: HOPE, a Detroit civil rightsorganization dedicated to intelligent and practi-cal action to overcome racism, poverty and injus-tice. Greenfield created a revolutionary educa-tional experience at Focus: HOPE'S highly suc-cessful Center for Advanced Technologies (CAT),a teaching factory where urban minority engi-neering students (called candidates) work eight-hour morning shifts and take university coursesleading to bachelor degrees in engineering orengineering technology from 2:45 pm until latein the evening. Project anthropologists support

Greenfield's efforts to improve engineering edu-cation by creating and disseminating a web-basedengineering curriculum built around the teach-ing factory experience. Funded by the NSF todevelop a new educational experience not en-cumbered by legacy systems, Greenfield inte-grates academic studies with manufacturingskills, leveraging technology to enhance teachingand learning via module-based courses incorpo-rating case studies and problems candidates en-counter in their CAT work.

Anthropological AspectThe anthropologists examine the role of culturein engineering education and ways to aid Green-field's efforts to change engineering education.Fieldwork is based on a dynamic theoreticalmodel of current US engineering education cul-ture designed by Marietta Baba to illustrate engi-neering education cultural change in this coali-tion of a human-rights organization, manufac-turing organizations and universities. Anthropo-logical research design and methodology willfacilitate transferability of GC programs, thus fur-thering culture change in other contexts whilebroadly advancing engineering education knowl-edge. This project is a case study illustrating thetheoretical model and Baba's concept of PracticeAnthropology, which is defined as a research ap-proach integrating theory and action by engag-ing anthropology with pressing real-world prob-lems.

Anthropology at Greenfield has two dimen-sions. Action research design initially documentsexisting engineering education culture. Anthro-pologists support change at Greenfield, its mem-ber institutions and industry partners by observ-ing and documenting what happens when newcourses and teaching instruments are imple-mented. In short, this qualitative ethnographicproject's mission-oriented goal is to enhancechange in teaching and learning culture by pro-viding critical feedback to Greenfield staff as theyconstruct new, experienced-based curricula readi-ly usable by educators without access to theFocus: HOPE teaching factory.

Second, Greenfield is an original field experi-ment in engineering education with significantimplications for recruiting and retaining under-represented minorities in North American andEuropean engineering schools. This study exam-ines change in educating a predominantly under-represented urban minority population, askinghow change processes can be enhanced as Green-field enculturates new minority engineers intotheir professional identity. This second dimen-sion consists of a fundamental inquiry into thisexperiment in engineering education that seeksto develop, promote and advance processes use-ful in educating Renaissance, professional engi-neers for work in a 21st-century global industrialmarketplace.

Preliminary FindingsThus far, classroom observations and 11 inter-views are complete, including five faculty, onenon-teaching staff, four students and one retired

volunteer who is part of a team-taughtexperiential course. Preliminary find-ings suggest some key factors affectingculture change. Factors affecting stu-dent candidates include time and human energylimitations, as well as peer pressure and peer sup-port inside the candidate cohort. A major cultur-al factor affecting staff and faculty teaching per-formance and behavior is an array of conflictingand shifting beliefs held by full- and part-timeteaching faculty, staff working with students inthe teaching factory, and students themselves.Conflicts include individuals' understanding ofGreenfield's vision, as well as contrasting teach-ing and learning paradigms. These emerging con-flicts result in symptomatic behaviors that hint atthe underlying barriers to culture change Green-field faces. These symptomatic behaviors include:1) faculty failure to implement new programs; 2)differences in faculty perception or treatment ofstudent candidates; 4) differences between non-teaching manufacturing supervisors and thosecharged with translating shop work into experi-ential learning; and 5) retiree volunteers' role inteaching and learning situations. Further class-room observation; participation observation; andinterviews with staff, faculty and students willexplore these findings, suggesting proceduresGreenfield and faculty at other institutions mayuse to support implementation of new coursework.

Next month is my last as AN contributing editor forSAW. Please send any correspondence for this columnto Anru Lee at alee@saclink.csus.edu. I will speakmore about Anru in my last column.

for Cultural

BONNIE URCIUOLI, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

SCA Executive Board PositionsTwo positions on the Executive Board of the SCAwill be open with the close of the 2002 AAAAnnual Meeting. The candidates for those posi-tions are Michael Fischer and Bruce Knauft forone position and Ana Alonso and Kim Fortun forthe second. Terms on the Executive Board run forfive years, so the two new members of the Boardwill serve from the close of the 2002 AnnualMeeting though the 2007 Annual Meeting.

Cultural Anthropology on JSTORThe SCA Board has unanimously approved a mo-tion resolving that past issues of Cultural Anthro-pology, up to five years before the present, shouldbe archived in JSTOR, and thereby be available ina searchable form on the Web. SCA PresidentDaniel Segal is actively working with AAA Presi-dent Don Brenneis and AAA Executive DirectorBill Davis to insure that this occurs without anyundue delay. We expect past issues of CA to beavailable through JSTOR by 2003.

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