Page 113 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
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96 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

about engineering education. If these researchers are correct, then the
magnitude of the challenge is apparent. The assumptions and mecha-
nisms that sustain the current system of engineering education, and
higher education in general, are more complex than is implied in simple
admonitions, such as “research is rewarded while teaching is not” and
“faculty members need to learn more about education research and
methods.”
Efforts to date have not clarified the nature, intensity, and expertise
that will be required to develop a “conversation” that will lead to sys-
temic reform in engineering education. Dee Hock (1999) states that it
took two years of regular, intense conversations among experts in the
banking industry to hammer out the principles for the foundation of
Visa International. Because engineering education is a much larger and
more complex enterprise than banking, longer, more intensive, more
inclusive, and more informed conversations will be necessary to estab-
lish a foundation for sustainable, systemic reform.
The length of time required to achieve widespread, sustained change
must be matched to the extent, breadth, and depth of the challenge. For
example, in the classic Diffusion of Innovations, Rogers (1995) noted
that it required a decade before almost all Iowa farmers adopted hybrid
corn. And the case for changing to hybrid corn (higher yields with no
changes in farming practices) was much more compelling than the cur-
rent arguments for reform in engineering education. Therefore, it might
take two to four times as long to achieve systemic reform in engineering
education. Lessons from other efforts to bring about cultural change
might also be enlightening.

CONCLUSION

The EEC Program demonstrated that engineering faculty members
can construct out-of-the-box, effective models for curricular and sys-
temic reform, and assessment data indicate that they lead to increased
retention and improved student learning. However, the EEC Program
also demonstrated that institutional and cultural barriers to change are
more complex, intricate, and subtle than is often appreciated and that
innovative models for reform are seldom enough to overcome the chal-
lenges to institutionalizing change. In addition, the program demon-
strated that effective models, even when well supported by assessment
data, do not catalyze systemic reform. To achieve that goal, resources

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