This symposium will stimulate a national dialogue on establishing engineering education programs in colleges of engineering in the U.S. The symposium will highlight opportunities and challenges of three institutions with established engineering education programs and will assemble a group of key stakeholders to share their expertise and explore methods of developing a successful engineering education program. This will include examining opportunities to initiate engineering education academic programs as venues for research and scholarship. This will require developing understanding of and foundation for creating dynamic programs to address the major challenges of ability and diversity of incoming students, retention/recruitment, classroom practices, and enhanced pedagogy. Further, the symposium will examine a national research paradigm for engineering education, and determine the revenue benefits of engineering education departments.
The need for transformation in engineering education is well documented. The need for change, American students? declining interest in engineering as a major, low retention rates, the need for a diverse engineering workforce, the effects of rapid technological change and globalization have been highlighted often in professional publications and the popular press. These reports argue that tomorrow?s graduate will compete in an emerging global economy fueled by rapid innovation and technological breakthroughs. Higher education institutions must respond decisively to fundamental obstacles to substantial and necessary educational transformation and build a coherent educational research program for engineering education which integrates a dynamic cycle of learning and implementation.
