Nicoleta Maynard
Teaching great engineering team players
Professor Nicoleta Maynard is passionate about developing the next generation of engineers into capable, confident team players who bring something very ‘Monash’ to the table when they enter the workforce. As the faculty’s Director of Engineering Education, Nicoleta has made it her mission to ensure that students graduate with exceptional teamwork and communication skills that set them well apart from the competition, along with all the right technical know-how.
Books and maths
Nicoleta’s approach to life and career was shaped by her mathematician dad and engineer mum while growing up in Romania during the communist period. Discussing books and mathematics around the dinner table was part of daily life, and engineering was considered as normal a career choice for a woman as it was for a man. “There was no talk of men’s jobs or women’s jobs; we talked about getting secure jobs in a major city,” she said. “One of the silver linings of living in a communist country was that we were all considered equal, at least ideologically. After trying out a career in drama first, I decided to try engineering once I’d figured out it was a lot more practical!”
Plus, Nicoleta also enjoyed the maths and science involved in engineering. “But, liking maths and science is no guarantee that you’ll become a great engineer,” said Nicoleta. “I had to consider, “Do I actually want to design all the time? Do I want to work in an office or lab or a refinery all the time? Do I actually want to work in teams? These are the extra decisions you have to make to decide whether engineering is really for you.”
Deciding that it was, Nicoleta enrolled in a chemical engineering degree and went on to work as a design engineer for a multinational consultancy in Bucharest, Romania, before moving to Australia to complete her PhD at The University of Queensland. Over her subsequent 17-year teaching career, she found it a “daily privilege” to contribute to students’ development as engineers and as “great human beings” and became increasingly interested in pursuing research into best-practice engineering curriculum models that develop students’ interpersonal skills. So, Nicoleta took the opportunity to ‘live by two of her values' - courage and faith’ - and began researching at the intersection of organisational psychology and engineering thinking. “I had the faith to believe that the right opportunity would come up, and then have the courage to pursue it. I was lucky, I had great support to make the change and pursue a new passion.”
A ‘Monash’ team player
Nicoleta started in the Faculty of Engineering in October 2019 and has since instituted changes to the first and fourth year Bachelor of Engineering course structure to better incorporate teamwork skills development approaches in the curriculum. Her aim is to change students’ perceptions of team assignments as being a ‘burden’ that inevitably results in a poor experience, and to centre it as a transformational part of the course experience that produces a fundamentally different type of graduate.
“I want future employers to feel like they’re gaining a very unique type of engineer when they employ a Monash graduate,” she said. “To do so, we’re focused on improving and developing students’ team interaction and communication skills, which are crucial to helping them bring a more complete package to the workforce beyond their own individual technical expertise. We’re developing their reflective practice skills and teaching them how to manage diverse interpersonal, cognitive and cultural approaches. We also provide tools for students who want to learn about leadership that optimises team performance. It’s complex, but critical.”
During the rapid and unexpected switch to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicoleta noticed that ‘empathy’ emerged as a new defining factor in students’ approaches to teamwork. “I had students say to me, ‘I used to be such a problem in group assignments, I used to do nothing - but I have no heart this year to do that to anybody.’” Across final year capstone projects, conflict between group participants was found to be almost non-existent, indicating that team cohesion and effectiveness can be bolstered through an empathetic approach to challenge circumstances.
Workplace gender equity
A key part of any team’s effectiveness is gender equity and diversity, and Nicoleta’s own experience as a woman in engineering has fortunately been positive, barring one experience of being excluded from a work trip to Saudia Arabia to evaluate heat exchanger technology she’d designed as part of a multinational consultancy. She firmly believes, however, that men must play an active and equal role in addressing gender inequity, particularly when they’re managing work and family responsibilities themselves while in the workforce. “I’d like men to feel comfortable enough to say, ‘I need to leave at 4pm so I can take my child to swimming lessons and have the family meal ready tonight,’' said Nicoleta. “We will not have more women in leadership positions if we don't create more opportunities for men to play a leading role in the family space.”
For young women considering a career in engineering, Nicoleta advises them to ’go ahead and do it.’ “Engineering is a fantastic, creative career, and there’s nothing you cannot do if you just get into the right habits and priorities in place,” she said. “’I think all engineers should read Jim Collins’ book Good To Great,” she continues, clearly a great reader and lover of books. “He says, ‘If you have more than three priorities, you've got no priority.’ To be able to follow your dream, choose two or three priorities to be able to stay focused.” As a final piece of literary-inspired advice, Nicoleta also recommends students’ keep in mind Dumbledone’s words to Harry Potter: “It is our choices that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.''