Isabel Jimenez-Useche, interim assistant head of First-Year Engineering (FYE), is always ahead of the curve.
She met Carolyn Percifield, director of strategic planning and assessment for the College of Engineering at Purdue University, in Bogotá 11 years ago when Percifield was just beginning to establish the collaborative relationship between Purdue and Colombia. Isabel flipped her classroom to student-centered active learning before she even knew what "flipping a classroom" meant. She refuses to be boxed into the stereotype of an engineer by making her own path forward, focused on teaching and finding solutions with the highest impact on people.
She is pura Bogotana. Born and raised in Bogotá, she never left Colombia until she came to the United States to pursue her PhD in chemical engineering at Purdue in 2009. She has since completed her PhD, worked as a post-doctoral research assistant for FYE for two years, and accepted a position as a visiting assistant professor at the School of Engineering Education at Purdue. In June 2017, she was appointed as the interim assistant head of the FYE program at Purdue. In her own words, this is her "dream job."
Below are some excerpts of a conversation about Jimenez's career at Purdue, being a minority in engineering, and the things she misses most about Colombia.
Where did your career in engineering education begin?
"When I was getting my masters in mechanical engineering at the Universidad de Los Andes, I had the opportunity to start teaching. I really, really enjoyed it.
I taught introduction to chemical engineering which was a freshmen class. Freshmen are different from other students, so I love working with them. When I finished my master's, I was offered to join the chemical engineering department at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá as the undergraduate program coordinator. I had different hats: I did recruitment, I did advising, I oversaw how the program was working, and I was schedule deputy and data steward. While I was in the position Carolyn Percifield happened to visit the university, and in that meeting that was the first time I heard of Purdue University.
Interesting fact: I wasn't supposed to be in that meeting, my boss was, but he couldn't attend and he said I should go. It was life changing."
Why do you like teaching freshmen over other classes?
"The first thing that you notice is that their abilities are so uneven: Some are good at math and others haven't taken calculus, some are good at Excel and others have never used it before. Each freshman has a unique story; you need to take them and level the ground somehow.
It's challenging to teach freshmen. If you go to slow some get bored, if you go too fast others get lost. That led me to explore different teaching techniques when I was an instructor back in Colombia. I used my intuition to change my class to be student-oriented, to respond to students' needs, instead of lecturing and students just showing up.
I didn't know it was called flipping the class until other people told me, and I was like 'Huh, who knew that had a name?' I stopped lecturing and put more emphasis in getting resources for students, taking advantage of students who were good at certain things to promote collaborative learning. We moved to base the class on learning objectives instead of content.
DFW rates became lower and students' satisfaction surveys were higher."
Isabel with her son and daughter
How do you buck the stereotype of a typical engineer?
"In the United States, it's different. Here, students have this idea of a stereotypical engineer, so to have a teacher who isn't a stereotypical engineer - a typical engineer would be male, white, middle-aged - is huge. They see this woman, Latina, non-American coming into the classroom, and they're like 'Oh wow, is she the role model I'm going to have?' At the same time, I can see the faces of the Latino students I have, especially the female students. I remember vividly one of the faces of one of my students. She opened her eyes as wide as she could. It was an 'aha' moment for her.
Students who have this stereotypical view of engineers also benefit from this experience. To have someone in a position of authority who is a woman and not white is very important for their growth."
What do you miss most about Colombia?
"Well I've been in the U.S. for eight years, but when I came here I missed the mountains a lot. I also had a hard time with so much light during the summer - I couldn't go to bed until very late at night. In Colombia it's very even; sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset at 6 p.m.
I miss the family and friends above all. And I learned to cook regional Colombian dishes here because I missed them a lot."
Favorite Colombian dish to cook?
"If I'm going to cook someone the ultimate Colombian dish, I make ajiaco."
Writer: Kirsten Gibson, gibson33@purdue.edu
Last modified: December 4, 2023