Abstract
In 1959, at the height of the Cold War, the British novelist and scientist C. P. Snow gave a public lecture at the University of Cambridge which was later published as “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”. Snow’s broad-brush critique lambasted traditional intellectuals and the education system for not recognizing the practical good accomplished by the ongoing scientific revolution. While Snow later walked back his dualistic view, his lecture reinforced both the notion of two contrasting cultures and a utilitarian rationale for engineering and science education that persists to this day. This chapter explores the notion of contrasting cultures and their persistence over time as university missions and governance structures change. The notion of two immiscible cultures is not as accurate as a range of sub-cultures that have emerged as university missions have expanded to include economic and workforce development, social justice, sustainability, and civic engagement on top of the traditional teaching, scholarship, and service. The conversations that arise between these cultures can serve to create connections between engineering, the social sciences, and the humanities. Such conversations may also make the cultures immiscible and drive individuals to ideological poles, thereby reinforcing existing tensions. This chapter critically explores the notion of contrasting cultures within higher education and the dialogs that spin out from assumed dialectics, particularly as they impact upon curricula, values, and organizational structures in engineering education. The notion of governance in engineering education is central to this discussion and will be explored through an intersectional lens where dialogs emerge from interactions between stakeholders such as industry, universities, professional societies, accreditors, and national actors. To make progress in a diffuse and changing environment heuristics serve better than rules; metaphors drawn from design and navigation are explored as ways to re-envision better integration of institutional cultures.
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Cheville, A. (2022). The C.P. Snow Controversy. In: Christensen, S.H., Buch, A., Conlon, E., Didier, C., Mitcham, C., Murphy, M. (eds) Engineering, Social Sciences, and the Humanities. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 42. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11601-8_5
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