(461i) Our Children, Our Students

The poet Louise Gluck once wrote, “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.” It is certainly true that every generation experiences trauma and anxiety, memories that shape them. Yet the 21^st century has been a wild ride for the millennials: from seeing their parents transfixed by crashing aircraft; their childhood marked with “global wars on terrorism;” at their fingertips they watch- if not experience- enormous calamities from a climate changing planet. Their teen years were held hostage by a world-wide epidemic; their media feeds punctuated with racial violence; their classrooms drilled regularly for gun violence.

They are now our students, both undergraduate and graduate, and they are acutely aware of social injustices documented on social media. Our students and their families are burdened with decades of debt for classroom content that often seems outdated, even when delivered via Zoom. It is no surprise, then, that there is a widespread crisis of student anxiety and depression, a concern voiced by many in the healthcare field. This is where our students and perhaps even our family members are at.

How do we do make chemical engineering education impactful in light of these realities? I propose that the answer lies in transforming and rebuilding our educational approach. This rebuilding means adapting to our current time and space and responding to students’ physical, emotional, and psychological needs. I will illustrate this challenge of rebuilding with examples from my work as a chair, advisor, and teacher. These examples are meant to inspire, not prescribe, and I hope they will encourage you to use your considerable acumen and insight to develop strategies for rebuilding chemical engineering education for the 21st century.