The typical engineering department operates on the basis of the traditional pillars of (1) Research, (2) Teaching, and (3) Service. With research focusing mostly on graduate students, and service comprising primarily of research-related activities, the professional formation of engineering students relies heavily on traditional classroom instruction. The complex nature of engineering disciplines has led to the development of curricula that focus on the technical content of each discipline. As a result, engineering students have limited exposure to critical professional competencies, that are often incorporated into a single course or project experience, and lack the rigor required of today’s engineering graduates. The proposed Organized Revolution will focus on the holistic Professional Formation of Engineering students via a three-prong strategy: (1) replacing the Research-Teaching-Service model with one based on Research-Students-Practice with industry and community outreach at every step, (2) linking the freshman to senior engineering design experiences via Professional Formation of Engineers courses, that are founded on professional engineering competencies identified by industry, and (3) empowering students through the concept of Taking Responsibility to Understand Engineering. This holistic approach coupled with a technical curriculum that can be personalized according to each student’s strengths and interests will result in a revolutionized new approach for the professional formation of engineers.
At the core of the revolution is the theory of rugged landscape, a conceptual scheme developed in the transdisciplinary field of informing science. Students and faculty are viewed as clients occupying certain states under the current research-teaching-service model. To move faculty and students to their new states (research-students-practice) the theory calls for bidirectional informing pathways. These pathways will be created by the various activities to be initiated under this project: (1) empowering students to Take Responsibility for Understanding Engineering, by introducing opportunities for self-development via the execution of personalized qualification plans, active participation and leadership roles in technical forums, participation in industry and community outreach projects, and direct involvement in the faculty evaluation, promotion, and tenure processes; (2) the development of a Professional Formation of Engineers multi-course layer across the curriculum to actively and continuously engage the students at every class level; (3) the formation of technical Track-Focused Advisory Boards to create industry-students-faculty interactive environments; (4) a lecture series with industry speakers to create interactive bidirectional links between students and professional engineers; (5) multidisciplinary projects to be solicited through industrial networks and the community to form the major experiential learning component of the revolutionized program. Student empowerment requires students to be goal-oriented and self-motivated. The theory of Action-State orientation will provide the basis for enhancing the motivation of students. The possibility that interventions can lead to the transformation of students from state to action-orientation is a key novel aspect of this project. The Organized Revolution will be used to answer the following high level research questions (1) What is the experience and impact of an individualized and adaptable qualification plan for the student and faculty community? (2) What is the nature and impact of integrating traditional silos of research, teaching and service under the rugged landscape paradigm on department culture? and (3) What are the interaction and mediating effects of qualification change and cultural shift? The project team will leverage the university’s membership in the Florida Consortium of Metropolitan Universities as the foundation of the dissemination, scaling, and adaptation activities.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
