Faces of Michigan
Name: Manuel Enrique Hernandez
Year: MS 2005, PhD Candidate (2008)
Field: Biomedical Engineering
Home: Florida
I first became interested in diversity and social justice while at U-M during my involvement with the ENGR 490 (Engineering for Community) teaching team in the winter semester of 2004. Working with Lisa Payton, Ken Ludwig, Professor Guy Meadows, Professor William Schultz and fellow graduate and undergraduate students for the next three years was a wonderful learning and teaching experience, which fostered lively discussion on the themes of cultural awareness, social justice, and need identification in underserved communities here and abroad.
Classes that sparked my interest in social justice issues and the law consisted of ENGR 490: Engineering for Community, offered in the winter of 2004, 2005 and 2006, and in Fall 2004, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) seminar series: Training for Multicultural Classroom Facilitation.
Co-curricular experiences I’ve been involved with:
Since my first semester at U-M (Fall 2003), I have been involved with the local Engineers Without Borders student chapter in what has become know as Better Living Using Engineering Laboratory (BLUElab). During 2004, I also became involved with the National Organization of Engineers for a Sustainable World, in the capacity of a Regional Director of Chapter Relations. In the winter of 2005, I first became involved with Health in Action (HIA) and have continued to work on a joint BLUElab-HIA collaboration in a rural community in the Dominican Republic.
I found out about some of these experiences by accident... walking across the North Campus diag during the Fall I came across an interesting booth, featuring a ceramic filter and met Andres Clarens and Tim Towey, who invited me to join a nascent student organization on campus, called Engineers Without Borders. After joining the group, its network helped me identify the CRLT and the subsequent opportunities to pursue community outreach and service.
Advice I would give to students who are trying to navigate their way around the social justice and diversity related experiences at U-M:
First of all, I would recommend for students to identify student organizations that spark their interest and to take advantage of the resources available at U-M to develop their knowledge of social justice or diversity. The CRLT is a wonderful resource, and I would highly encourage graduate students to attend personally relevant seminars.