The insidious construct of whiteness is treated casually and theoretically, while the destruction its causes is tangible and longstanding. This presentation will center on a work in progress that examines the concept of spirit-murdering within the context of an engineering education doctoral research program.

Dr. James Holly, Jr. is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and core faculty member within the Engineering Education Research program at the University of Michigan. His research paradigm is shaped by his experiences growing up in a Black church within a Black city and later studying engineering at Tuskegee University, a Black institution, three spaces where Blackness is both normal and esteemed. As such, he sees his teaching, research, and service as promoting pro-Blackness—affirming the humanity and epistemic authority of Black people—in engineering education. His scholarship calls attention to the ways anti-Blackness pervades engineering culture, and he uses reparatory justice as a framework to reconstruct engineering teaching, research, and practice. He focuses on the ways disciplinary knowledge (i.e., mechanical engineering) reinforces racialized power, the role of culture and cognition in teaching and learning, and preparing pre-college engineering educators to identify and counteract racial inequity.