Former engineering and science professors, Dr. Damon L. Tull and Dr. Renetta G. Tull have been married for more than 23 years. Students often ask about what they talk about at the dinner table. Among the many topics of discussion are issues of social justice, community, and physics.
In 2015, they submitted the idea of connecting social science, social justice, and physics to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The paper, co-authored with Shawnisha Hester and physicist Dr. Anthony Johnson, was enthusiastically accepted for publication by the ASEE in 2016.
On June 27, 2016, they launched the “Dark Matters: Metaphorical Black Holes” concept at the 123rd Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education in New Orleans, Louisiana. Leaders of national and international organizations were present. The presentation was a success. Attendees immediately began to see the elements of their organization in a new way. The metaphors discussed in the 2016 ASEE paper, now available through ResearchGate, can be used to describe and address situations that characterize the 95% of the “invisible” universe that exists within academic institutions.
The social science research for this paper was supported by PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Division of Human Resource Development (HRD); Collaborative Research: AGEP -T: PROMISE AGEP Maryland Transformation # 1309290.
Dark Matters Diversity 