Positive interpersonal peer relationships are noted to be beneficial for learning outcomes and persistence for college students, but these benefits can be hindered when peer interactions include subtle expressions of gender bias. In an academic setting, we tested whether being mere witnesses to subtle behavioral expressions of gender bias affects gender stereotyping concerns, affect, sense of belonging, enthusiasm for academic group work, and spatial visualization test performance among students from both socially privileged (men) and disadvantaged groups (women). Across three experiments (total N = 1,242), we compared the effects of witnessing gender bias in student peer interactions to stereotype-neutral control interactions (all studies) and to witnessing non-gendered rude behavior (in Studies 2a and 2b). Witnessing gender bias resulted in higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of belonging compared to witnessing control and rude interactions for both women and men students, but especially for women. Additionally, witnessing gender bias increased gender-specific stereotyping concerns about being assumed incompetent (among women) and being assumed sexist (among men) compared to witnessing control and rude interactions. Lastly, witnessing gender bias and rudeness similarly lowered enthusiasm for academic group work. No effects were noted on spatial visualization test performance. This work suggests being a mere witness to gender bias in academic settings can harm both men (socially privileged) and women (socially disadvantaged) students, beyond the effects of witnessing rudeness, by diminishing interpersonal outcomes that predict student success and retention.

Societies realize the value of increasing the number of engineering and other STEM graduates, yet universities often struggle to enroll and retain STEM students, particularly women. To remedy this, many engineering programs have shifted their pedagogical approaches to include project-based learning in group settings. However, prior research on engineering teams revealed, for example, gender gaps in active participation, reflecting stereotypes of men as engineering experts and women as supporters. In the current study, we examined the long-term correlates of such gaps. Specifically, in a mixed-method study (behavioral observation, surveys, and longitudinal follow-up) we found gender differences in active technical participation during students’ first year in engineering project group presentations, such that men engaged in more active participation than women (N = 589). Longitudinal follow-ups in their final year revealed that first year technical participation was a predictor of feelings of belonging, and these feelings of belonging in turn predict retention in engineering majors and intentions to pursue graduate education in engineering. Together, these results suggest that the first year engineering team experience plays an important role in retaining students and highlight opportunities for early interventions.

We tested whether merely witnessing gendered microaggressions affects group work experiences among male and female undergraduate computer science and engineering students. Across three experiments (N = 753), we randomly assigned computer science and engineering students to witness microaggressions targeting female students, or control interactions, using a video manipulation. Witnessing microaggressions—compared to the control—resulted in heightened gender-specific stereotyping concerns, with women being concerned about appearing incompetent and men being concerned with appearing sexist. For both women and men, witnessing microaggressions resulted in decreased enthusiasm for participating in group work. Moreover, for women, the relationship between decreased enthusiasm and witnessing microaggressions was partially mediated by increased concerns about being stereotyped as incompetent. Across the experiments, mixed results emerged regarding the effect of witnessing microaggressions on the recall of engineering content in the video. This research extends previous work focused on personally experiencing microaggressions to merely witnessing them, showing that positivity toward anticipated group work is diminished for both women and men when they see peers engaging in microaggressions.

Historically, research on coastal processes has largely been concentrated on oceanic environments which have much in common with the Great Lakes but also differ in significant ways. This is particularly true with respect to substantial and lasting water level fluctuations that occur on seasonal and decadal time scales that differ temporally from shorter term tidal fluctuations and greatly exceed long-term oceanic sea level rise. Since the late 1990s, the Great Lakes basin has experienced record-breaking high and low water levels as well as more frequent and intense storms. This combination of factors has led to changes to these nearshore environments and stimulated new and exciting coastal research characterizing and quantifying these changes and offering new insights into Great Lakes coastal processes. Studies in this special section address these unique coastal landscapes shaped by both natural forces (e.g., ice dynamics, waves, and fluctuating lake levels) and human influences (armoring, coastal structures, sediment nourishment, and policy interventions). The findings shared in this collection provide actionable knowledge for anticipating change, mitigating risk, and building long-term resilience while calling for adaptive management frameworks to foster proactive, equitable stewardship of the Great Lakes shorelines.

Coastal erosion is a hazard for sandy beaches along the Great Lakes of North America, especially during periods of high lake level. A barrier to managing these hazards is the lack of a process-based understanding of nearshore sediment transport and geomorphic connectivity. In this study, a multidecadal dataset of beach and nearshore profiles collected at six sandy beaches along the eastern coast of Lake Michigan and contemporaneous hydrodynamic data are utilized to quantify long-term boundaries of sediment transport during accretionary and erosive conditions. Our results indicate that at most sites longshore sediment transport is the dominant force shaping multidecadal profile evolution. Accretionary wave conditions can generally only transport sediment onshore from shallow sediment ridges of the inner nearshore and from the lower reaches of the subaerial beach in longshore drift. In contrast, erosive wave conditions can mobilize sediment from all areas of the profile and transport it offshore. Sediments stored in deeper nearshore bars can be activated by high-energy erosive wave conditions, but these features likely primarily function as multidecadal sinks for eroded beach sediment given the dominance of offshore-directed transport for these wave conditions. Furthermore, these results suggest that the likelihood of recovery following high lake level should decrease in this region as extensive coastal armoring reduces sediment availability and increases reflective wave energy in the accretionary wave-accessible portions of the nearshore. Ultimately, this study puts forth a simple method for predicting the likelihood of future beach recovery that can be used to help guide coastal management.

People stereotype women to be less skilled and competent in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) than men [Nosek, B. A., Smyth, F. L., Sriram, N., Lindner, N. M., Devos, T., Ayala, A., Bar-Anan, Y., Bergh, R., Cai, H., Gonsalkorale, K., & Kesebir, S. (2009). National differences in gender-science stereotypes predict national sex differences in science and math achievement. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States ofAmerica, 106(26), 10593-10597]. These stereotypic beliefs can leak out in words and behaviors as microaggressions-defined as brief everyday verbal, behavioral, or environmental slights directed toward someone due to their social category [Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender, and sexual orientation. John Wiley & Sons].-and can be a hindrance to womens'persistence and inclusion in STEMfields. In the current research we utilized a mixed methods approach to document the content and presence of microaggressions in undergraduate engineering group work settings among women and men. In Study 1, focus groups with women and men engineering students (N = 43) revealed that women reported experiencing microaggressions in the form of assumptions of inferiority or behaviors suggesting that they possess inferior STEM skills and competence. In Study 2, we developed a behavioral coding rubric to document the presence of assumptions of inferiority among women and men students (N = 260) in engineering teams as judged by trained independent observers. In Study 2 observations revealed that more women were the target of assumptions of inferiority than men, corroborating self-report findings. Moreover, although our studies focused on gender-based microaggressions, Study 2 observational coding revealed People of Color were the targets of assumptions of inferiority more than White people. Results complementprior self-report data and indicate that diversity and inclusion efforts should focus on reducing the presence of microaggressions in peer STEM contexts.

Resilient planning for coastal hazards requires an understanding of both short-term and long-term coastal change dynamics. Numerous studies have been conducted throughout the Great Lakes of North America on processes and responses associated with short-term coastal changes, such as storms and seasonal fluctuations in lake level; however, few datasets exist that can capture long-term coastal morphodynamics in this region. Lack of data and knowledge creates a barrier for accurately modeling future coastal change, which underpins proactive coastal management. This is particularly problematic at sites adjacent to coastal infrastructure, such as those near harbors. To address this, we utilize a 32-year record of coastal profile change from several sites along the Lake Michigan shoreline of Michigan to examine profile evolution in response to changing lake levels and human disturbance. These data reveal that coastal sites without shoreline armoring can recover from erosive high lake level phases if lake level remains low for an extended period. However, if sites are armored, or if future climate conditions result in more frequent or more extreme lake level fluctuations, full recovery of the coastal profile is unlikely. Managers and decisionmakers can utilize this information to evaluate their site conditions and proactively plan for future coastal changes.

In STEM project group teams, men speak for more time (Meadows and Sekaquaptewa, in: Proceedings of ASEE annual conference, 2011) and engage in more active technical participation than women, which can have negative long-term consequences (Cheryan et al. in Psychol Bull 143:1–35, 2017; Lord et al. in IEEE Trans Educ 54(4):610–618, 2011). In the current study, we tested the effects of a brief counter-stereotypic video intervention on gender gaps in verbal participation on mixed-gender teams of STEM students (N = 143). Participants viewed either a control video of an engineering student team behaving in a gender stereotype-consistent way (men talked longer and presented more technical information than women) in a group presentation and group interview, or a gender counter-stereotypic intervention version (roles reversed) prior to engaging in their own STEM group project task in a laboratory setting. Analysis of video footage of the groups showed that men spoke longer than women in the control condition, but men and women spoke for equal time in the intervention condition. This result was corroborated by participants’ self-report of their verbal participation in their group.

In 2013 the Laurentian Great Lakes are at historically low levels; but they will undoubtedly rise again as they always have in an ongoing pattern of seasonal, annual and decadal fluctuations. Those fluctuations, coupled with other physical dynamics unique to the Great Lakes system, will continue to shift shorelines lake-ward and land-ward dramatically over time, perhaps more so because of increased storminess from climate change. These shifting shores implicate legal doctrines that attempt to balance public interests and private property rights at the shore, and they complicate the Great Lakes states' efforts to effectively and fairly manage their Great Lakes shorelands. One challenge comes from using an elevation-based standard to mark ordinary high water, a method that is difficult conceptually to administer and that yields multiple marks over time. We describe briefly Great Lakes shoreline dynamics and the application of state Public Trust Doctrines to those shorelines, and we discuss in detail recent litigation in Michigan regarding use of an elevation-based standard to mark ordinary high water, illustrating the inherent problems with that standard. We conclude that the elevation-based standard should be abandoned, or if not abandoned applied in a manner to adequately safeguard public trust shorelands.

For the past decade, engineering schools have developed a variety of models for introducing first-year students to their chosen field. These range from surveys of engineering disciplines and introductions to problem solving and algorithmic thinking, to design and professional skills in project-based learning courses. Such courses have greatly enhanced the participants' early understanding of the engineering field, improving student understanding of the field and allowing students to make better choices of disciplines and, consequently, increasing their satisfaction with their engineering education(1).Despite the growth of design projects in first-year engineering courses, little research to date examines the effect of such courses on student motivation. Broad studies of retention in engineering education show promising results for women and other under-represented students in project-based courses(2); however, engineering educators need a richer understanding of how specific project-oriented pedagogies affect students', and in particular women's, motivations for engineering and their intended career plans. This study focuses on women because of their continued underrepresentation in engineering(3,4) and the need to ensure effective retention efforts in the midst of a movement to enact large-scale curricular transformation in engineering.To address this need, this study investigated student motivational level (based on the expectancy-value theory of academic achievement) as well as intentions to persist of male and female first year engineering students at a large midwestern university at three time points: as students entered their first semester (n=323; 107 female and 215 male), after completing the first semester (n=191; 70 female and 121 male), and after completing the first academic year (n=133; 52 female and 81 male.). An online survey, updated from another study(5), investigated six motivational constructs using Likert-style questions: interest in engineering, perceived usefulness of engineering, identity with engineering, sense of belonging in engineering, expectancy of success in an engineering program, and sense of worth of obtaining an engineering degree. Additionally, students were surveyed as to their intentions to persist in the engineering program and to pursue a career related to their engineering degree. A confirmatory factor analysis coupled with internal reliability measures suggested that the factors were constructed appropriately for this application of the survey.Consistent with previous research, female students entered the university with significantly lower ratings of expectancy of success in engineering coursework than male students(5). However, their expectancy of success increased over the first year, such that female students were statistically indistinguishable from male students by the end of the first year. In addition, women exhibited a slightly lower (marginally significant) sense of belonging in engineering than men upon entering university study. Interestingly, there were very few significant differences between the successive surveys. In addition to women showing a marginally significant increase in expectancy for success over the first year, men exhibited a marginally significant decrease in their sense that an engineering degree is worth the cost. These results contribute to an already complex set of findings on gender and motivation in engineering undergraduate studies, and an analysis of the underlying antecedents is warranted.

High frequency (HF) radar has become an important tool for remotely mapping the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of waves and currents of the nearshore coastal ocean. Its acceptance along ocean coasts has resulted in the development of several commercially available systems and a planned nationwide coastal network to routinely measure coastal currents. Because HF radiation is known to propagate less efficiently over fresh water than seawater, it has been largely overlooked as a viable tool for freshwater application. However, its potential utility in freshwater was clearly demonstrated by a deployment along Lake Michigan as part of the 1999–2001 Episodic Events Great Lakes Experiment. As part of this experiment, the University of Michigan Multi-frequency Coastal Radar consistently produced reliable near surface current measurements to a range of approximately 25km offshore showing strong correlation with both in-situ measurements and numerical hind-casts. This paper provides background on HF radar technology, a summary of the current state of the art with respect to freshwater and describes the results of a recent experiment to measure the propagation of HF radar signal over freshwater using CODAR Ocean Sensors SeaSondes, operating at 5 and 42MHz with 21W and 90W average radiated powers, respectively. The effective offshore range for these radars was found to be 18km at 5MHz and 4–5km at 42MHz. These findings are consistent with currently available models for the prediction of propagation loss, verifying that they can reliably be used to estimate ranges in freshwater settings.

Empowering Students with Choice in the First Year For the past decade, engineering schools have developed a variety of models for introducingfirst-year students to their chosen field. These range from surveys of a variety of engineeringdisciplines, introductions to problem solving and algorithmic thinking, to design and professionalskills in project-based learning courses. The introduction of these courses has greatly enhancedearly student understanding of the engineering field, improving choice of discipline andsatisfaction with engineering education (Sheppard et al., 2009).This paper provides an overview and analysis of an introductory engineering course design thatempowers entering first-year students with choice. While most engineering curricula offerlimited choice in the introductory experience, or are specifically tailored to disciplines that thestudent must claim prior to enrollment, this course design gives students the freedom of choosingamong 12-14 different engineering design projects in an introductory setting. The projectsrepresent a variety of cross-disciplinary and discipline-specific projects addressing all of theavailable majors in the college, with themes in alternative energy, systems design, humanitariandesign, engineering and the arts, and entrepreneurship. Most of the projects have significanthands-on components, while a few provide a more research-based approach. Interested facultyin the college from a variety of disciplines design the projects. All of the sections provide afoundation in the professional skills, including teamwork, with strong emphasis on technicalcommunications.During the 2010-11 academic year, students in the course were surveyed to determine how theywere electing to enroll in the sections, and what effect their course experience might have ontheir intentions to persist in engineering and their selection of a major. Of 369 students surveyed,71% strongly agreed or agreed that, as a result of taking this course, their interest in being anengineer was increased or was confirmed. Eighty-nine percent of respondents found the designproject interesting, and 81% felt they had a better understanding of what an engineer does as aresult of taking the course. Although this outcome may not be directly related to the course,when surveyed about their choice of engineering major before and after the course, only 6students reported their intentions to leave engineering after the course (zero before). Theoverwhelming majority of students reported keeping the same engineering major, with someshifting from undecided or between engineering disciplines. In addition, section enrollment forwomen and under-represented minority students mirrors expectations suggested in research thatthese students are drawn to careers that feature the opportunity to help others (e.g. Seymour &Hewitt, 1997). Humanitarian projects and those featuring environmental and biomedical themeshost disproportionately high numbers of under-represented students. Finally, student satisfactionwith this course is high, with the course and instructors receiving median values, averaged acrossthe sections, of 4.2 and 4.4 respectively on course evaluations (on a 5-point Likert scale).These results suggest that student interest and understanding in engineering increase whenstudents are allowed to explore an engineering topic of interest in their first year. In addition,this model may serve to create a welcoming atmosphere for a diverse set of students, allowingunder-represented students the opportunity to engage in aspects of engineering that are importantto their career goals.References Cited: Seymour, E., & Hewitt, N. (1997). Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave thesciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Sheppard, S. D., Macatangay, K., Colby, A., & Sullivan, W. M. (2009). Educating engineers,designing for the future of the field. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

In the United States only about one quarter of all undergraduate students in engineering are female. Because there are significantly fewer female than male engineering students, the composition of small groups of engineering students assigned to complete group projects is likely to be skewed towards male-dominant membership. The underrepresentation of women both in the field of engineering generally, and in engineering group project teams specifically, can leave women vulnerable to stereotype threat, experiencing concern that one will be judged in terms of a stereotype. In this project, we investigate the effect of skewed gender compositions on active participation in group projects in a required introductory engineering course. Using video records of 175 final group design project presentations (4-6 students per group, 660 students total), we performed a systematic investigation of student's active participation, i.e., the roles and behaviors adopted by male and female students as a function of gender composition of the group. Independent judges viewing each videotaped presentation classified roles and behaviors adopted by participants. Parameters that were collected include presentation content type (on a spectrum from technical to non-technical), student roles in the mechanics of the presentation (e.g., as explaining technical aspects or simply introducing others), and perceptions of leadership, effectiveness and appearing knowledgeable as rated by the independent judges. These data were combined with ancillary data consisting of student demographics and overall GPA. In addition, we administered a survey instrument to a subset of the sample (n = 222) at the end of the Winter 2010 term. The questionnaire included student perceptions of their own leadership and performance on the group project. Evaluation of the videotaped presentation footage revealed that men presented more technical information for longer than expected periods during the oral presentations, while women presented significantly more of the non-technical material, speaking for a shorter than expected period of time. Although limited in scope, survey results show that male students tended to rate their leadership and performance higher when there were fewer other men in the group. This research suggests that male students adopt more active roles and may have better outcomes than female students in project presentation groups.

In 1968 the Michigan Legislature adopted an elevation-based approach for discerning the ordinary high water mark (OHWM) along the state's Great Lakes shorelines pursuant to the public trust doctrine. In 2005 the Michigan Supreme Court reaffirmed that Michigan's public trust interest extends up to the OHWM, but it articulated a different standard for discerning that OHWM, noting in passing that the state's statutory standard relates only to certain regulatory authorities. The court left unresolved the questions of exactly how these two methods of marking ordinary high water relate to one another and precisely how far up the shore the state's authorities to regulate private shoreline development extends. We first describe how the Great Lakes states, including Michigan, have adapted the public trust doctrine to their Great Lakes shorelines, particularly in terms of demarcating boundaries. We then discuss attributes of the Great Lakes that make those efforts problematic and present original data on changing water levels and shoreline profiles along Lake Michigan over time. Based on that analysis, we conclude that while use of an OHWM on Great Lakes shorelines makes sense, the state's statutory elevation-based OHWM standard makes little sense given Great Lakes shoreline dynamics. We identify further legal and policy issues the state will likely confront as it attempts to mark OHW in the foreseeable future given both the state of the law and the nature of the Great Lakes.

Runoff from the mountains and large glaciers on the rim of the Gulf of Alaska is a critical driver for ocean circulation in the gulf and a major contributor to global sea level rise. Bering Glacier is the foremost glacier of this system, with one of the largest proglacial lake-river systems in the world, Vitus Lake, which is linked to the Gulf of Alaska by the Seal River. Vitus Lake, at sea level and >250 m deep in some locations, receives all of the runoff, rainfall, and glacial melt from the Bering Lobe, which then flows into the Gulf of Alaska in the 8-km-long Seal River. Six years of conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) surveys in Vitus Lake show a highly stratified system with 50% diluted seawater at the bottom. The annual surveys show changes in the deep water temperature and salinity that are the result of seawater intrusions. To understand the complex interaction between lake level and area, glacier discharge, river morphology and flow, sea level fluctuations, and their associated impacts on the lacustrine ecology of Vitus Lake, we developed a hydrodynamic flow model that was calibrated using field measurements of lake level and the flow in Seal River. The model is used to analyze present conditions in Vitus Lake and shows that even with no runoff entering the lake, the distance from the Gulf of Alaska through Seal River to Vitus Lake is too great for typical tidal inflow to reach the lake. Furthermore, the model is used to understand the response of the glacier-lake system to possible future scenarios of glacier retreat or advance and changes in runoff. Finally, properly calibrated, such a model would be able to gauge the discharge from the Bering Glacier System by measuring only the lake level.

In today's context, we are all challenged to consider issues of diversity and global engineering in the context of engineering education. However, little explicit guidance has been given on how to conceptualize diversity and global engineering in meaningful ways, and how to develop research questions that allow us to rigorously investigate the issues at hand. This session will provide an interactive forum for exploring those questions, finding answers collaboratively, and moving one's own work forward. To anchor the forum, we will draw on the experiences of engineering faculty and graduate students who participated in a year-long engineering education research program, the Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education (ISEE). The session will build on a similar session offered at the 2005 FIE conference to expand the growing engineering education research community, extend the knowledge-generating work begun in the 2005 session, and add two new components: 1) a focus on the process of developing and refining a research question, and 2) an emphasis on studying diversity and global engineering issues.

Research indicates that under-represented students of color, especially Latino/a and African American students, and women (hereafter collectively referred to as URS) do not enter in the engineering disciplines in numbers commensurate with their enrollments in other courses of study within the University. In addition, some of the URS who initially enroll in freshman-level engineering courses fail to persist in the discipline. The challenge, therefore, is to determine what changes in the climate and/or engineering curriculum might encourage greater numbers of URS to enroll and persist. The goal of this project is to establish an inventory of student retention data for URS in engineering at the University of Michigan to determine the likelihood of persistence based on an evaluation of student intentions upon enrollment, deliberateness of course choices and perceptions of the first year experience. The objective is to follow the trajectories of students based upon their initial choices and intentions and to seek patterns of difference in female and under-represented minority students. This work-in-progress presents a summary of the initial findings of this investigation

A multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research team evaluated a broad range of physical and biological characteristics at six Great Lakes nearshore sites in order to develop and test a conceptual modeling framework to assess linkages between bluff erosion, sediment supply, coastal processes, and biological utilization of nearshore and coastal habitats. The sites were chosen to represent a broad range of hydrogeomorphic conditions, with the objective of assessing the response of these nearshore systems to anthropogenic modifications and coastal change. As a result of this 2-year field effort, new methods and integrated approaches were developed to characterize, map, and assess the dynamic nature of the nearshore zone (area generally less than 10 m water depth). Thus, these data provide an initial quantitative assessment of nearshore change. In addition, our data indicate that shoreline modifications have led to cumulative impacts that have irreversibly modified Great Lakes nearshore coastal habitats and the processes that create and maintain them. Of special note is our observation that altered nearshore substrate dynamics resulting from shoreline modifications may enhance the colonization success of lithophilic aquatic invasive species in nearshore areas of the Great Lakes. Continued development of the shoreline may exacerbate changes in Great Lakes nearshore food-web structures and ecosystem services. Further study and monitoring of these phenomena are needed, and our work suggests that a holistic, multidisciplinary approach is necessary to develop effective management strategies to address these and other issues affecting nearshore areas of the Great Lakes.

The authors present three aspects of current HF radar research. First, they examine the consistency of measurements by HF ground wave radars with different designs, but operating on the same physical principles. This is done using data from the commercially available SeaSonde (Codar Ocean Systems) and from the Multifrequency Coastal Radar (MCR), which is a research system. Data from the two systems are compared for co-located units at Santa Cruz and Moss Landing CA on Monterey Bay. They conclude that the two systems make current-vector-field measurements that are consistent to an accuracy of better than 10 cm/s and that the data from two such systems can be integrated to form reliable composite current maps. Second, they present results from an air-sea interaction investigation using the MCR systems on Monterey Bay during 1997 and 2000. We show that near surface currents are correlated with the wind with correlation coefficients 0.6 and are rotated 35 to 45/spl deg/ with respect to the wind in the sense of the Ekman spiral. They also show results of near shore observations on Lake Michigan during the EEGLE campaign of 2000. These measurements show the capability of HF radars to operate over fresh water.