At Loyola Chicago, engineering and social justice are naturally intertwined.  Each of our three curricular specializations emphasizes a social justice application:

Biomedical Engineering – Biomedical Engineers blend traditional engineering techniques with biological sciences and medicine to improve the quality of human health and life.  We believe all patients should receive high-quality medical devices, regardless of their ability to pay.  Our students learn to design and test robust medical device software, in preparation for a medical device to be cleared or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Computer Engineering - Computer Engineers conceive and develop the next wave of computing advances, innovations, and devices that are used in modern computers and computer controlled systems. Our students learn how to design and integrate hardware and software that are used in computer equipment such as microelectronic chips, circuit boards and controllers, and in computer controlled systems such as computer networks, cyber physical systems, sensors and actuators, and smart grids.

Environmental Engineering – Environmental Engineers identify, analyze and design solutions to environmental problems, which disproportionately impact historically disadvantaged communities.  Addressing environmental issues, such as water and air quality, requires taking into account the underlying impacts of climate change that threaten the global community.  Our students learn environmental analysis and management for the water and wastewater treatment industries.

 

We incorporate Active Learning into every Engineering course, since Active Learning has been demonstrated to increase the academic performance of women, students of color, low-income students, and first-generation college students.  Additionally, we embed five social justice case study days throughout our curriculum, so that our students analyze the impacts of various technologies on society and consider how their future work will affect others.  Through our curricular contextual thread on sustainable buildings, our students conduct lab experiments related to technologies in our LEED-certified buildings, to better understand how energy use is minimized on our campus.

 

We appreciate how American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism Magazine recently recognized our commitment to social justice when it highlighted some notable Engineering School expansions in the United States.