Leveraging the NAM’s 'Getting Nurses on Boards Coalition' to Promote NAE’s 'Changing the Conversation' Campaign

Oerther, Daniel B.

doi:10.18260/1-2--30771

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…As the profession of environmental engineering continues to grow and as the role of climate change continues to impact both the local and the global economy, there will be an increasing competitive advantage for caring environmental engineers to rise to top leadership positions across the wide-range of firms that rely upon any engineering sub-discipline. Environmental engineers may benefit by borrowing from similar efforts to penetrate leadership positions such as the campaign to "Get Nurses on Boards" (Oerther, 2018). While future work should explore the nuanced issues of justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, we suggest that efforts borrowed from other caring professions, such as nursing, have the potential to change the culture within firms as more diverse leaders helps to open up opportunities to capture value created in caring for human welfare and planetary health on the quarterly balance sheet.…”

Section: Implications For the Future Of Caring In Environmental Engin...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

2022

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Among the sub-disciplines of engineering, environmental engineering is distinctive in three aspects. First, descriptions of the profession of environmental engineering emphasize that environmental engineers solve problems to prevent harm, which typically is an important motivation for taking a job in care work. Second, the percentage of degrees awarded to women is highest for environmental among all sub-disciplines of engineering (i.e., 53.3% of bachelor's degrees, 46.3% of master's degrees, and 43.6% of doctoral degrees in environmental engineering conferred in 2020 were awarded to women). Third, median salaries for environmental engineerscontrolling for other variablesare lowest among engineering subdisciplines (i.e., $82,036 per year in 2019), despite high levels of educational attainment and training. Our analysis of environmental engineers working in the United States strongly suggests that the profession of environmental engineering is highly susceptible to what is known as the care penalty. The care penalty is a function of market dynamics, which tend to undervalue work that generates substantial unpriced benefits for others. The care penalty often is observed in jobs characterized by high levels of intrinsic motivation, such as concern for human welfare.Additional data would be useful to further evaluate the care penalty in environmental engineering in other countries. To address the care penalty, we do not suggest that environmental engineers should become less caring. Rather environmental engineers should be aware of this potential economic risk and seek to mitigate the care penalty in two specific ways.First environmental engineers should encourage life-cycle principles and environmental fullcost accounting in order to increase fungibility among different measures of the components of the triple bottom line of people (i.e., human welfare), planet (i.e., planetary health), and prosperity (i.e., financial gain). Second, environmental engineers should clearly demonstrate the unique contributions that technically skilled commitments to human welfare can generate.We suggest that a greater awareness of these issues could build on and strengthen growing public concerns regarding environmental sustainability. Finally, we suggest that distinctive attributes of environmental engineering may prove critical to unlocking growth in the engineering workforce as care for human welfare and planetary health.

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Section: Implications For the Future Of Caring In Environmental Engin...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

2022

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“…Previously, I have shared my personal experience using caring theories of nursing to improve my teaching of environmental engineering practice [6]. And I have suggested that approaches from the profession of nursing, such as the National Academy of Medicine's "Getting Nurses on Boards Coalition", may represent an opportunity to achieve some portions of the goals of the Changing the Conversation Campaign (i.e., promoting historically underrepresented groups in engineering to take on leadership roles) [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Did the NAE Changing the Conversation Campaign Introduce the Care Penalty into Engineering?

Oerther

2023 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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Over the past twenty years, the National Academy of Engineering of the United States of America undertook a campaign entitled, "Changing the Conversation." Explicit intentions of the campaign included raising public awareness of engineering, increasing the total number of engineers, and recruiting historically underrepresented groups to join engineering. In particular, marketing efforts developed inclusive "tag lines" aimed to diversify groups enrolled in engineering and increase the diversity of the professional engineering workforce. While changes in demographics were disappointing for some groups (i.e., little to no change was observed for people of color), generally, the campaign has been considered moderately successful for increasing the number of females joining engineering. This is speculated to be associated with the use of tag lines that helped to "humanize engineering" (i.e., emphasizing the "people helping" aspects of engineering rather than the "building things" aspects of engineering).

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Improved Health Diplomacy is Necessary for Resilience after COVID-19

Oerther

Klopper

2021

J. Environ. Eng.

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Engineers and nurses share a history of productive collaboration at the bedside designing and deploying technology to monitor individual patients as well as developing systems to support patient health and promote wellness (Zhou et al. 2021). Similarly, engineers and nurses share a history of productive collaboration beyond the bedside-in the public community-promoting health and wellness including access to fresh air, clean drinking water, adequate sanitation, effective hygiene, safe and nutritious food, affordable housing, reliable transportation, and abundant energy supplies (Oerther 2019;Oerther et al. 2019. As engineers and nurses continue to work together and learn from each other-even while the pandemic known as COVID-19 continues to evolve-we need to explore ways to be more resilient. This includes learning to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions while working together to achieve sustainable development, local to global, for individuals (i.e., patients) and the public (i.e., families, populations, communities, nations, and the world). One approach that engineers should adapt from nursing is health diplomacy, including (1) promoting health as a universal human right, (2) coordinating health monitoring and response across national borders, and (3) supporting diverse, equitable, and inclusive approaches to poverty eradication

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Leveraging the NAM’s 'Getting Nurses on Boards Coalition' to Promote NAE’s 'Changing the Conversation' Campaign

Cited by 3 publications

References 8 publications

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

Environmental Engineering as Care for Human Welfare and Planetary Health

Did the NAE Changing the Conversation Campaign Introduce the Care Penalty into Engineering?

Improved Health Diplomacy is Necessary for Resilience after COVID-19

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