The Engineering Studies Program at Lafayette College is a community. We strive to respect, trust, and support each other in our work together.
Our home is in the Acopian Engineering Center, though we understand our Program as part of the larger Lafayette campus, city of Easton, broader region, and the world. As with the College writ large, Engineering Studies is committed to creating a diverse space that binds together different communities: one that is inclusive, responsive, and supportive of its faculty, students, and staff regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and place of origin. Achieving such a space requires that all members work together to uphold the honesty and integrity needed to support one another.
Our commitment to the virtues of a diverse community leads us to think of and teach about the ways technologies can help or hinder such virtues. We thus envision engineering as a way to build a future that is inclusive, respectful, and diverse, while promoting equity and striving for democratic collaboration. That means we begin in the classroom by seeking to cultivate diverse and inclusive spaces; we work with students to build a culture of responsibility for fostering that community of trust and belonging inside and outside of class; we work as faculty members to model inclusive education and fair treatment of one another; and we teach and learn about the ways engineering can be an agent for positive change.
As with many modern professions, the engineering profession has not, historically, always been welcoming to people from all backgrounds. But because engineers play a particularly important role in fashioning our technological society, the decisions engineers make about who technologies are for, how they might be used, and what vision of the future they help structure require more voices and diverse perspectives. All told, then, the Engineering Studies Program along with the Engineering Division commits itself to building twenty-first century engineering where difference is valued, equity is sought, and inclusiveness is practiced.