Aditi Verma, University of Michigan and Katie Snyder, University of Michigan Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

Socially Engaged Design of Nuclear Energy Technologies

What prompted the idea for the course?

The two of us had some experience with participatory design coming into this course, and we had a shared interest in bringing virtual reality into a first-year design class at the University of Michigan. It seemed like a good fit to help students learn about nuclear technologies, given that hands-on experience can be difficult to provide in that context. We both wanted to teach students about the social and environmental implications of engineering work, too. Aditi is a nuclear engineer and had been using participatory design in her research, and Katie had been teaching ethics and design to engineering students for many years.

What does the course explore?

Broadly, the course explores engineering design. We introduce our students to the principles of nuclear engineering and energy systems design, and we go through ethical concerns. They also learn communication strategies – like writing for different audiences. Students learn to design the exterior features of nuclear energy facilities in collaboration with local communities. The course focuses on a different nuclear energy technology each year. In the first year, the focus was on fusion energy systems. In fall 2024, we looked at locating nuclear microreactors near local communities. The main project was to collaboratively decide where a microreactor might be sited, what it might look like, and what outcomes the community would like to see versus which would cause concern. Students also think about designing nuclear systems with both future generations and a shared common good in mind. The class explores engineering as a sociotechnical practice – meaning that technologies are not neutral. They shape and affect social life, for better and for worse. To us, a sociotechnical engineer is someone who adheres to scientific and engineering fundamentals, communicates ethically and designs in collaboration with the people who are likely to be affected by their work. In class, we help our students reflect on these challenges and responsibilities.

Why is this course relevant now?

Nuclear energy system design is advancing quickly, allowing engineers to rethink how they approach design. Fusion energy systems and fission microreactors are two areas of rapidly evolving innovation. Microreactors are smaller than traditional nuclear energy systems, so planners can place them closer to communities. These smaller reactors will likely be safer to run and operate, and may be a good fit for rural communities looking to transition to carbon-neutral energy systems. But for the needs, concerns and knowledge of local people to shape the design process, local communities need to be involved in these reactor siting and design conversations.

What materials does the course feature?

We use virtual reality models of both fission and fusion reactors, along with models of energy system facilities. AI image generators are helpful for rapid prototyping – we have used these in class with students and in workshops. This year, we are also inviting students to do some hands-on prototyping with scrap materials for a project on nuclear energy systems.

What will the course prepare students to do?

Students leave the course understanding that community engagement is an essential – not optional – component of good design. We equip students to approach technology use and development with users’ needs and concerns in mind. Specifically, they learn how to engage with and observe communities using ethical, respectful methods that align with the university’s engineering research standards.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

As instructors, we have an opportunity – and probably also an obligation – to learn from students as much as we are teaching them course content. Gen Z students have grown up with environmental and social concerns as centerpieces of their media diets, and we’ve noticed that they tend to be more strongly invested in these topics than previous generations of engineering students. Aditi Verma, Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan and Katie Snyder, Lecturer III in Technical Communication, College of Engineering, University of Michigan This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Harvard Kennedy School and Christopher S. Warshaw, George Washington University Following George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis in 2020, the U.S. has undergone a national reckoning over crime prevention and police reform. Across the country, calls went out from activists to rethink the scope and role of the police. Some on the left vowed to “defund” the police. Others on the right promised to instead “back the blue” and maintain or increase police funding. This rhetorical tug-of-war unfolded while many cities across the country grappled with spiking crime rates during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Blaming crime on Democratic city leaders was a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. He repeatedly made claims about crime spikes in recent years without evidence or context. More recently, Republican congressional leaders have called several Democratic mayors from across the country to testify before Congress about their sanctuary city policies that are aimed at protecting noncitizens from deportation. These congressional politicians have asserted that these Democratic mayors – Brandon Johnson of Chicago, Mike Johnston of Denver, Michelle Wu of Boston, and Eric Adams of New York – have “created a public safety nightmare” in their cities by allowing immigrants without legal authorization to stay there. Journalists and politicians on both sides of the aisle have claimed that local election results over the past four years in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles reflect a widespread frustration with Democratic policies on crime in cities. Under this argument, Democratic city leaders need to change their approach on crime to satisfy voters. It’s become a political axiom of sorts that policies championed largely by Democratic city leaders over the past half decade have resulted in rising crime levels. As researchers of politics and public policy, we wanted to figure out if that was true.

Neither party does a better job

As any student of introductory statistics learns, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Looking at increases or decreases in crime rates in Republican or Democratic cities and claiming either party is to blame would be making exactly this error: confusing correlation with causation. We put to the test the argument that one side or the other is better at fighting crime in our research published in January 2025. By employing three decades of data on mayoral elections from across the country, we were able to disentangle city leaders’ partisanship from other features of cities. Contrary to much of the political rhetoric and media coverage aimed at most Americans, our results show that neither party is doing a better job at actually causing crime to decrease. In Dallas, Mayor Eric Johnson has claimed that Democratic leaders aren’t taking public safety seriously and that the Democratic Party is “with the criminals.” Johnson switched from being a Democrat to a Republican in 2023 and attributes his decision at least partially to this partisan difference on crime and policing and the seriousness with which he takes this policy issue. But our research shows that Johnson’s and others’ claims about Democratic cities becoming more dangerous just aren’t true: Mayors from the Democratic Party aren’t making cities any more – or less – dangerous than mayors from the Republican Party. Nor, it turns out, is there any support for claims by some progressive Democrats that they would reduce the role – and enormous budgets – of police departments in cities across the country. When we examined the number of sworn police officers in cities and how much money those cities spend on the police, Democratic and Republican mayors alike have had surprisingly little influence on police department budgets or sizes. In other words, Democrats aren’t cutting police budgets, nor are Republicans increasing police budgets. Most cities have increased police budgets in the past few years, possibly due to pressure from police unions.

‘Crime is nonpartisan’

It turns out that campaign promises from both sides of the partisan aisle about crime and policing have little bearing on what’s happening on the ground in most cities and police departments across the country. Neither party is doing a better job at reducing crime. Nor is either party actually addressing the ballooning financial cost of local police forces in the U.S., nor the long-term reputational costs from police misconduct for trust in the police and government more broadly. As others have said: crime is nonpartisan. Crime has decreased across the U.S. during the past three decades overall, and the isolated cities where crime has increased recently can reverse these temporary trends. Partisan blame narratives do little to actually lower crime and make neighborhoods safer, though. There are real evidence-backed policies that reduce crime – such as youth jobs programs in Chicago and Boston. Other policies reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system – such as alternative 911 response programs that use unarmed behavioral health workers to respond to some types of emergencies. These policies and interventions might not be as slogan-worthy as “defund the police” or “back the blue.” Nor is implementing these policies as politically convenient as blaming sanctuary city mayors. But research shows that they work and can move cities toward the shared goal of improved public safety for their residents. Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and Christopher S. Warshaw, Professor of Political Science, George Washington University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.