Iain Hunt, Nora Reynolds, and Jordan Ermilio

The proposed workshop will explore multiple stakeholder perspectives in defining success around engineering initiatives in development, specifically where university partners are involved.

The topic will first be introduced via:
* The collective experience of the facilitators representing different positionalities in a 10+ year partnership between a college of engineering and NGO partners in rural Nicaragua (university administrator/ faculty, NGO representative/ project manager).
* A research study (Reynolds, 2016) that explored various stakeholder perspectives (student, faculty, administrator, NGO representative, community member) around a university collaboration with local actors in a rural municipality of Nicaragua.

Next, attendees will participate in a role-playing activity built around a hypothetical scenario wherein a university group is involved with an engineering project in a rural area of a developing country. Each participant will be assigned a role (student, faculty, university administrator, NGO staff, local government representative, community member, donor, etc.), and asked to evaluate the success of the hypothetical initiative from each perspective. Together, we will discuss and synthesize how multiple perceptions of success can (or should) inform program planning and decision making in pursuit of “successful outcomes.”

Finally, the session will aim to bring out the assets/ strengths/ resources in the room, with participants to be asked to reflect and share out on their own previous and ongoing collaborations, successes and failures, and how these may have been viewed by different stakeholders. As workshop facilitators we commit to document and share back the ideas/ examples/ resources that emerge with the group after the gathering in efforts to continue thinking together.