personal – Social Justice Engineering

Coming Together is Divine

Yesterday ended the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, one of the major observances of the Jewish year. Jewish “days” actually begin at night. The festival of Shavuot (“Weeks” or “Pentecost”) is also known in our tradition as z’man matan toratenu—“The Time of the Giving of Our Torah.” I have some thoughts.

I defended my PhD in Environmental Engineering and Queer Studies!

Happiest and proudest day of my life as a queer, first-gen, low income scholar! Right before presenting.

My dissertation, Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Students: Perspectives, Resiliency, and Suggestions for Improving Engineering Education, was defended on January 22nd. I am excited to have in this post the video link to watch, a download for use in any courses you teach, and the slide deck for reference! I want this work to be accessible to the public.

Quoted in Washington Post: Amid pandemic, graduate student workers are winning long-sought contracts

Union protesters march at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., in 2019, over what organizers said were increasing incidents of harassment and discrimination. (Michael Dwyer/AP)

“People are fighting because in this pandemic and this austerity period in higher education, it’s fight or flight,” said Andrea Haverkamp, the president of the Coalition of Graduate Employees at Oregon State, where she is a doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant in environmental engineering. “When push comes to shove, workers stick up for themselves.”

Read the whole article here!

Podcast interview with Laborwave

LaborWave Radio · Waste After The Revolution

So very honored and delighted to be interviewed by Laborwave, a thought provoking and engaging leftist theory and news podcast. Here is a description from their website:

“After the Revolution is inspired by the desire to offer more than a diagnosis of what is wrong with today by focusing on what we might be able to bring about instead. Each episode within this series will begin by highlighting the importance of considering one particular feature of society, then imagining what it might look like after the revolution, and finally offering some ideas on how we get to this revolutionary society.”

“Goodbye, Nebraska” – QuaranZine Flash Fiction

During the COVID-19 crisis, I joined together with others in my community to create a zine anthology. All of these stories centered on the following prompt:

“The dominant culture that we live in frequently pushes us to prioritize our relationship with a romantic, monogamous partner over other relationships with friends, family, and neighbors. Some ways we see this are in the expectations to cohabit with our partner, formalize the relationship through legal and religious ceremony, (for women in particular) to change our names in marriage, and for partners to share financial & material resources with each other. Create a culture where this is no longer the norm. Describe the alternative ways humans build, celebrate, or formalize relationships with each other in that world. Note: you do not need to create something “better than” what we have now, nor do you have to make a culture that you would want to live in. 1000 word limit. All genres welcome.”

Here’s the story I wrote, titled Goodbye, Nebraska.

“I’m moving out.” Sharie was nervous and overwhelmed. Maybe she was just whelmed. Regardless, she had anticipated that the news would be a lot to process for everyone at the table. “I’m moving in with Grace. Just us. I’m… monogamous.”

Continue reading ““Goodbye, Nebraska” – QuaranZine Flash Fiction”

“A lot of the challenges I run into are a level of political disengagement in engineering”

I am so grateful for the write up about my research and activism done by Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University.

Andrea Haverkamp is a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, with a minor in Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Her work is in engineering education, which explores the student and faculty experiences in engineering, right from curriculum to learning practices and pedagogy and also looks at diversity, inclusion and equity in the classroom.

Haverkamp is also President of the Coalition of Graduate employees (CGE), representing over 1800 graduate employees at OSU, “I think labor union activism is a critical action-oriented feminist praxis,” she says.

Read the article here, or click through for the text below.

Continue reading ““A lot of the challenges I run into are a level of political disengagement in engineering””

KMUZ Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp of the Coalition of Graduate Employees at OSU

I recently spoke on KMUZ Community Radio in Salem, Oregon about how labor unions are fighting for reform in higher education and how this connects to creating a just, equitable, and socially minded campus community.

Adapted excerpt after the jump – check the link here:
KMUZ Willamette Wakeup Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp

Continue reading “KMUZ Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp of the Coalition of Graduate Employees at OSU”

Interfaith Engineering Ethics – Climate Change and responsibility in V’haya Im Shamoa

During Yom Kippur morning services yesterday I felt a completely new interpretation and meaning for my own sense of ethics as an engineer embedded within the Sh’ma. As engineers we are all guided by a sense of ethics – whether we realize it or not. These ethics are learned, taught, and honed in our lives before we become engineers and continue to develop throughout our careers. They can come from engineering education, but they also can come from our faith traditions or from interfaith dialogue. I believe there is a lot of room to reflect on the numerous ways we internalize ethics and how they relate to the engineering profession. In particular, I think it is worthwhile to add spiritual ethics as items of consideration and discussion. In this post I wish to talk about what I see as our ethical commitments to the climate as told in the second paragraph of the Sh’ma.

Continue reading “Interfaith Engineering Ethics – Climate Change and responsibility in V’haya Im Shamoa”

Feminist Killjoy with Andrea Haverkamp

Branching Out

Welcome to our debut episode of Branching Out! This week, I talked to Andrea Haverkamp about gender dynamics in engineering. Listen to the audio from this episode HERE!