Dayton Engineer

By Scott Segalewitz, School of Engineering

The University of Dayton ETHOS Center was founded in 2001 by a team of engineering students and was created to take engineering curriculum beyond the classroom, even beyond this country. Since then, the program has grown to include partnerships in twenty countries on four continents and also includes local and domestic student immersions. Over its lifetime, ETHOS can proudly claim over 500 alumni not only from all disciplines of engineering but also from all schools and colleges within the University of Dayton.

In June, the ETHOS Center was restructured to replace the director with an executive director and an ETHOS Professor for Leadership in Community. This restructuring allows ETHOS to work toward its vision to provide experiential learning through community engaged learning internships, collaborative research, hands-on classroom projects and through support for student organization activities. 

Kelly Bohrer was named as the inaugural executive director, effective July 1. I am also very pleased to announce that, beginning with the new academic year (August 16), Scott Schneider will be the inaugural ETHOS Professor for Leadership in Community. Kelly and Scott, working together with program coordinator, Lindsey Temple, will make an excellent team to guide the ETHOS Center to the next level. Please join me in congratulating Kelly and Scott in their new roles.

Kelly Bohrer served this past year as interim director of the ETHOS Center, and three years as director of community relations in the ETHOS Center. In her 20-year tenure at UD, Kelly has had numerous roles of increasing leadership, which included biology lab coordinator, coordinator of community outreach in the Center for Social Concern, and director of community engaged learning and scholarship in the Fitz Center, in addition to her most recent roles in the School of Engineering. She was most recently recognized as a "Woman of UD" and was one of three UD employees central to the city of Dayton's Roots of Racism last fall. As the acting director of the ETHOS Center and as the director of community relations, Kelly has built the ETHOS Center immersion programs to include more Dayton, domestic and international community partners; perhaps more importantly, though, she has developed these partnerships and enhanced existing ETHOS partnerships in ways that reflect reciprocity, fair trade learning and authentic relationships — all key values of the ETHOS Center. As executive director, Kelly will be responsible for promoting and ensuring the mission of the ETHOS Center to engage faculty, staff and students with community partners for applied research, sociotechnical immersions, and development of just and sustainable technologies to advance engineering for the common good. 

Scott Schneider is an associate professor with the Department of Engineering Management, Systems and Technology. Over his 17 years at UD he has taught engineering design, digital electronics, microprocessor systems and community engaged engineering courses. His current research focuses on engineering pedagogy related to engineering design, community engagement, intercultural development and vocational awareness. He has published a range of technical papers in books, journals and conference proceedings, and he has won multiple internal and external grant awards in these areas. Scott serves his campus community as a Marianist Educational Associate and was recently accepted into the Lilly Faculty Fellows Program where he will be partnering with Dr. Natalie Hudson in the Human Rights Center to develop vocational training at the crossroads of engineering design and human rights. Scott previously engaged with the ETHOS Center as a faculty adviser for multiple ETHOS International breakouts, through the development of a COIL version of the ETHOS Appropriate Technology course and in support of partner organizations. He is excited to start this position and help grow the educational and research activities aligned with the ETHOS Center's core values in order to empower even more faculty, staff and students to participate in community engaged, globally focused, and inclusively minded learning and scholarship activities.