Tech professor becomes life member of American Society for Engineering Education
Pedro Arce, Ph.D.
Pedro Arce, Ph.D, chemical engineering professor, university distinguished faculty
fellow at Tennessee Tech University and fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry,
has been accepted as a life member of the American Society for Engineering Education
(ASEE). The organization – originally called the Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education – was formed in 1893 to advance innovation and excellence in teaching, scholarship,
research and service in the engineering field.
“When I was notified that I have been elected to the lifetime membership, I was highly
honored and grateful to the colleagues and officers who supported my activities at
the ASEE as well as to all my current and former students and colleagues for the incredible,
wonderful partnership over the years,” Arce said.
Since joining Tech’s faculty more than 20 years ago, Arce has developed a teaching-learning
style that puts students in the driver’s seat of their own education. His Renaissance
Foundry Model focuses on educating students on critical thinking, leadership, and
team-based skills through experimental experiences instead of instructor-centered
explanations.
Arce calls this “a new type of engineer” who is holistic, innovative, socially impactful
and has an entrepreneur’s mindset. It has even been acknowledged as a best practice
by the ASEE, with their Thomas C. Evans Award in 2014 and 2021 and the Zone II Best
Paper Award in 2015.
“I have focused on developing innovative approaches that enable students to become
master learners and capable of transferring their knowledge to create prototypes of
innovative technology to address societal needs,” he said.
Life membership in the ASEE is voted on by the group’s board of directors, which decides
if each applicant is embodying their vision statement of providing “excellent and
broadly accessible education, empowering students and engineering professionals to
create a better world.” Arce has a long history of doing just that, especially with
the ASEE.
He has served as a member of the publication board of the Journal of Chemical Engineering
Education, been the chair of the administrative division of the Southeastern section,
contributed articles to the annual proceedings, as well as offered multiple workshops
to train K-12 teachers and college professors at the regional and national meetings.
He has been recognized five times with the prestigious Thomas C. Evans award from
the ASEE-SE for the most outstanding instructional paper and the Middle Career Award
for outstanding teaching, among other distinctions.
“We have all learned so much from Pedro,” said fellow Tennessee Tech chemical engineering
professor and university distinguished faculty fellow, Joseph Biernacki. “He always
says, ‘It is not about teaching; it is all about learning,’ – a saying that is so
very true. When we recognize that we, the faculty, are only facilitators of learning,
not oracles of all knowledge, and we relinquish control of learning to the student,
we all benefit. Thanks to Pedro’s perseverance and methodical development of pedagogies
that foster good instruction, we now have a structured way to view STEM education
that is reaching way beyond the boundaries of Tennessee Tech.”
Arce’s love of education started when he was tutoring classmates in high school. That
passion only grew when he attended the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fe,
Argentina. Later, Arce became a teaching assistant and then a lecturer in the university’s
Department of Physical Chemistry. He went on to earn his master’s and doctorate from
Purdue University in Indiana where he says he is grateful to have worked with those
he calls leaders in the engineering education field, including Professors Doraiswami
Ramkrishna, Phil Wankat, Nick Delgass, Steve Whitaker and Richard Felder. Arce says
is also grateful for the training provided by Professors Eduardo Lombardo, Alberto
Cassano and Horacio Irazoqui from his years in Argentina.
“During this journey, it became a passion for me to be an expert in the knowledge
acquisition and knowledge transfer that is at the core of student learning,” Arce
said. “Therefore, for me, ‘working’ in the education field has been – and continues
to be – a lifetime dream journey and being a college professor: a dream job!”