Challenging a “Common Sense Absence”: Centering Narratives and Experiences of Undergraduate STSers in the Trump Era

• In Event: STS in Practice

Abstract

The College of Liberal Arts at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO) – an undergraduate-focused, publicly funded, predominantly white, historically conservative, comprehensive polytechnic university – launched a new Science, Technology & Society Minors Program in Fall 2015. Over 150 students are currently enrolled from each of the university’s six colleges, with the largest numbers in the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Engineering. Like its home institution, Cal Poly STS focuses on undergraduate students and prioritizes Learn by Doing in its approach to teaching and the production of original STS knowledge. However, while at the center of STS at Cal Poly, undergraduates who identify as STSers are typically absent as both attendees and as subjects of attention at 4S Annual Meetings. This project challenges this “common sense absence” of undergraduates and shows the generativity of centering the narratives and experiences of undergraduate STSers for the identification and expansion of our own sensibilities as STS scholars, teachers, and activists. Drawing from artifacts produced by and interviews with undergraduate STSers, this paper explores the ways in which these students utilize “doing STS” as a framework for and mechanism of individual and group resistance to neoliberal STEM education, neoliberal Liberal Arts education, “Engineering to Help” approaches to global competency for engineers, and systems of racial oppression. This paper also explores the role of Trump era anti-scientism and pro-science activism in shaping the identities/practices of undergraduate STSers and their visions of their personal/professional futures and the future of STS.

Authors

• Jane Lehr, California Polytechnic State University

• Matt R. Klepfer, California Polytechnic State University