The University of Washington Chemical Engineering (ChemE) department continues to shape the narrative around what it means to be a chemical engineer, and much of the innovation starts outside the classroom. 

Modernizing the ChemE curriculum

Elizabeth Nance, professor of chemical engineering and current chair of the ChemE undergraduate program, addressed the conserved nature of the chemical engineering curriculum taught at institutions across the nation.

“Take a chemical engineering student from almost any college in the country, and I could tell you exactly what classes they are taking, and probably what textbooks they are using,” says Nance.

In the packed curriculum that chemical engineering students progress through, every principle is essential. The benefit of having such a rigid discipline is that the employers that hire newly graduated chemical engineers will know exactly what training students have had. The challenge, however, comes with modernizing ChemE education to meet the expanding applications of chemical engineering in industry.

“Modernizing the curriculum becomes extremely difficult,” says Nance, “In order for something new to be added, something else must be cut to make space, which poses a huge risk in such a historically conserved discipline. So you have to find things that will teach the same exact principles in a new and more relevant way.”

In the first chemical engineering class that UW ChemE students take as sophomores, they learn the foundations of chemical engineering at the most basic level represented by relevant scenarios. In 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Nance took the opportunity to introduce the new cohort of students to chemical engineering by using vaccine production as the focus of demonstrating fundamental principles.

“It demonstrated a highly complicated problem that reflected a real-world scenario at the time, and those basic principles are still very much a part of the production process that yields a safe product that will be injected into billions of people to help mitigate a new pandemic.”

A collaborative, diverse faculty

The chemical engineering department is fortunate to have faculty that connect to every impact area students might be interested in pursuing after completing their education. ChemE’s core faculty also represents a group of educators particularly diverse in age, ethnicity, experience and expertise. These differences among them only strengthen the collective goal of making continuous improvements in chemical engineering education by offering valuable perspectives from all kinds of personal and professional experiences.

When it comes down to modernizing a historically rigid curriculum, making change is possible, but it demands buy-in from all faculty and a commitment to adjusting classroom learning with the changing times and standards.

Some long-time faculty have been using the same classroom examples for decades to effectively teach certain principles of chemical engineering. Why change something that’s been working for so long? Because the world is changing, and so is ChemE’s identity. A degree in chemical engineering is among the most versatile and adaptable engineering degrees, which forces a reframe of the picture that the general public may have about what the discipline represents in industry.

Historically, a chemical plant and all the public hazards that come along with it might be the first image that comes to mind at the mention of chemical engineering. But that is not necessarily the most accurate reflection anymore. Julie Rorrer, a newer addition to the faculty as of January 2023, has been recognized for her lab’s research and work in the area of plastic upcycling, and represents just one way that chemical engineers can contribute positively in the area of clean energy and sustainability.

“We have expertise coming from both ends of the spectrum,” says Nance, “We have professors who have taught here for many decades, and seen how current events impact education over time,” says Nance, “We also have new professors who have a fresh perspective on what modernization could look like in the curriculum and how to strengthen the overall perception of chemical engineering.” 

The active collaboration of new and seasoned faculty brings fresh ideas and past challenges together to meaningfully shape the way that change can be effectively incorporated into classroom problems. Every year, all ChemE faculty teaching core undergraduate courses gather to discuss course content and do peer review, to determine how they can best adapt content for the sake of relevance to the ever-changing chemical engineering landscape.

Better teamwork in classrooms 

Part of the ChemE undergraduate lab experience is intended to prepare students for the collaboration and teamwork they can expect after graduating and entering their careers in industry. The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) SMARTER Teamwork is a collection web-based tools created by Purdue University that enable professors to implement teams optimized for productivity and effectiveness based on student criteria. 

Alex Prybutok, assistant teaching professor of chemical engineering, introduced CATME in her classes to better support ChemE seniors preparing to transition into industry careers. This tool helps mitigate issues that can arise from other methods of group formation like leaving students to self-select or assigning teams at random. 

By surveying a broad scope of student data, the program can designate effective teams based on information like gender and ethnicity, preferred work styles, class schedules, and extracurricular activities. Factoring in things like minority status helps ensure that any marginalized students don’t feel alone in their group. In addition, CATME’s automatic peer evaluation feature can help notify instructors early of any tension between students in their designated teams, which provides the opportunity for early intervention. 

The goal with is to provide a positive introduction to teamwork for students that aligns with the department’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.