Page 112 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html

THE ENGINEERING EDUCATION COALITIONS PROGRAM 95

the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and at conferences
organized by coalitions. These workshops synthesize work from several
projects and offer participants an opportunity to explore the results in
depth. However, the number of participants that can be reached through
a workshop is small compared to the potential audience. In addition,
although workshops were offered at no cost to host campuses, surpris-
ingly few took advantage of the offer. Four Share the Future Confer-
ences, which consisted almost entirely of interactive workshops, were
offered by the Foundation, Gateway, and SUCCEED coalitions. Par-
ticipants at each conference praised the quality and breadth of the mate-
rial covered at the workshops; however, the participating audiences were
too small to justify additional conferences.
The third innovative dissemination mechanism was compact sum-
maries synthesizing the results of particular educational innovations.
One-page introductions that could be read in 10 to 20 minutes and
mini-documents that could be read in less than an hour provided fac-
ulty members with an opportunity to learn about innovations in engi-
neering education with a small investment of precious time. More than
20,000 copies of compact summaries by the Foundation Coalition have
been downloaded from its web site. Given the small investment in read-
ing a compact summary, however, the only anticipated result is greater
receptivity to future encounters with the subject. So, despite innovative
and diligent initiatives, the dissemination of results of educational re-
search and development remains a challenge.

The Cultural and Faculty Change Challenge
The importance of cultural change emerged as the EEC Program
shifted its focus from the development of models of curricular renewal
on partner campuses to the catalysis of systemic reform. However, a
clear understanding of the characteristics of cultural change and pro-
cesses for achieving it did not emerge. Researchers who have studied
cultural change suggest that the challenges are much more extensive
than is usually recognized. Seel (2000) suggests that cultural change in
engineering education will be achieved only when the nature of the
conversation about engineering education has changed. Eckel and Kezar
(2003) suggest that transforming engineering education will require that
the majority of engineering faculty members change the way they think

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