Duffield EER Institute Seminar: Walter Lee (Virginia Tech)

Join us for the Inaugural Duffield Engineering Education Research Institute Seminar Series

Practice: Lessons Learned Directing Traffic in a Hurricane

Change is often said to be the only constant. Because higher education is not immune to this reality, the need for academic units to change over time should be assumed.

Unfortunately, knowing change is coming and being prepared to respond are not one and the same. Ideally, education research would inform these responses. One area where the need to change has recently emerged in engineering is how we position efforts to broaden participation, an area where no shortage of research exists.

In this seminar, Walter Lee will share lessons learned from leading the transformation of an engineering student support center with a mission to broaden participation from 2025-2027, a period rife with shifting funding priorities, policy changes, leadership transitions, and a changing political environment. Lee came to this leadership position with over a decade of experience focusing his scholarship on this very area. Because Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) is often coupled with political and cultural movements that originate outside of engineering, shifts in local and national context require engineering education leaders and researchers to periodically reconsider and adjust how we pursue and study it. Drawing on metaphorical language, Dr. Lee will offer a first-hand account of leading an academic unit engaging pre-college to graduate students, and highlight strategies for navigating uncertainty, (re)aligning with institutional and national priorities, and sustaining impact during periods of significant (and sometimes unanticipated) change.

Attendees will gain practical insights about organizational change in higher education and learn lessons applicable to student support programs, academic units, educational organizations, and researchers facing evolving internal and external pressures.

Bio: Walter C. Lee is a professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech and the executive director of the Center for Engineering Excellence and Discovery (CEED). Lee is broadly interested in the educational experiences of students from historically underrepresented groups in engineering and our efforts to support them. His career vision is to be a driving force in national efforts to ensure that institutions provide students with the support they need to succeed, regardless of their background.

His research earned him a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on examining navigational strategies for undergraduate engineering students, as well as a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He has a B.S. in industrial engineering from Clemson University, an M.S. in industrial & systems engineering from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in engineering education from Virginia Tech.