Well, I finally did it. After months of my family’s support and urging, I finally resigned from the college.

I am devastated. I’ve worked at the college for almost 30 years. Twenty years ago, I began the process of learning and collaborating with colleagues and peers around the globe, figuring out what is broken in the culture of engineering, defining what it could be, identifying the gaps and creating a plan to make the changes needed. The college supported my path, sponsoring two graduate degrees as I pursued this growing desire to make effective change in the school of engineering technology. Now I have formally given up the hope of leading the school into that future vision. I failed.

Yet, I have known of my inability to make that needed change for the past three years. In my opinion, the dean is well-rooted in the traditional culture; he is unable to comprehend the issues when they are identified.* That is not his fault: it is just where he is. I did not fully realize that, however, until our first attempt at mediation failed. I am hopeful our second attempt, if he agrees to one, will be successful.

With that hope and with this end, I begin my life’s work in earnest.

So, it is the end of one dream and the beginning of another, grander effort: the Edge. With this project, I share the back story of my research through a series of vignettes, infographics and discussion papers defining the strengths and opportunities we have in today’s global society in order to foster inclusion and belonging throughout the professions. I begin with engineering, recognizing that these learnings are valid universally.

Here’s the beginning…

_{*Note: this phase was edited for clarity on January 20th, 2023}