Spring 2026 Teaching Circle: Developing Students' Professional Identity through Sustainability-Focused Curriculum

Ashish Agrawal, Dean’s Office, CET; and Lucio Salles De Salles, Department of CET/EMS, CET

This teaching circle invites RIT faculty to explore the critical role of sustainability in developing the identity of modern engineers. As the demands of society shift, equipping our students with a sustainable mindset is more crucial than ever.

 Our goal: To collaboratively identify, adapt, and assess high-impact teaching practices that effectively expose engineering students—from freshmen to seniors—to sustainability concepts. This circle aims to disseminate the work completed through the NSF-funded grant "Influence of Sustainability-Focused Course Interventions on Students' Engineering Identity Development".

 What to expect: This is an action-oriented group where participants serve as co-explorers. Each meeting will center on the practical exchange of curriculum materials, with facilitators and interested participants sharing real-world, sustainability-related class activities and exercises currently used in their courses. As researchers involved in the NSF project, we will share our findings—which are based on analyses of student interviews and written reflections—to highlight how students respond to sustainability concepts and how the interventions specifically affect their professional development and engineering mindset

 Participants will gain access to a collection of sustainability activities and a direct understanding of the psychological and professional impact of these topics on student learning. A set of refined, evidence-based teaching strategies is the circle’s intended deliverable

 We will meet on-campus (location TBA) approximately every other Tuesday,12:00-1:00 p.m. (lunch will be provided), on the following five dates: Jan 27, Feb 10, Feb 24, March 24, and April 14. If you are interested in joining this circle, email Lucio Salles De Salles.