Page 12 - 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

Preface

The Engineer of 2020 Project centers on an effort to envision the fu-
ture two decades from now, to use this knowledge in an attempt to predict
the roles engineers will play in the future, and to position engineering edu-
cation in the United States for what lies ahead, rather than waiting for time
to pass and then trying to respond. It is driven by concern that engineering
students of today may not be appropriately educated to meet the demands
that will be placed on the engineer of 2020 and that, without refocusing
and reshaping the undergraduate engineering learning experience, America’s
engineering preeminence could be lost. It takes as a given that the nation’s
societal goals will not be met absent a robust engineering community in the
country. It asks what restructuring of program, reallocation of resources,
and refocusing of faculty and professional society time and energy are re-
quired so that our educational infrastructure can educate engineers pre-
pared to tackle the challenges of the future. It questions how we can more
effectively share with students—current and potential—our passion for
designing systems, structures, and devices to solve problems and our con-
viction that engineering is a profession that offers rich rewards for serving
the interests of society.
In addressing a Summit on Engineering Education held in conjunc-
tion with this project in July 2004, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
President Charles Vest encouraged the assembled educators and stakehold-
ers to think about the students when considering how the engineering
education system should be reengineered by stating, “This is the most

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