Page 14 - 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 xiii

the Professions Program of the Carnegie Foundation, accreditation systems,
and the history of efforts to realign engineering education. These papers are
included in Appendix A.
The Summit featured keynote addresses by Ruth David, Charles Vest
(see Appendix B), Shirley Ann Jackson, and Nicholas Donofrio and, be-
tween the plenary sessions of the Summit, five breakout groups met to
allow more detailed and interactive discussions on various aspects of the
engineering education system. The Summit agenda is in Appendix C.
Immediately following the workshop, the Steering Committee met to
review the workshop discussions and was assigned the task of preparing this
report. Final review of the report by the Steering Committee to critique its
conclusions and recommendations was conducted by e-mail.
It is notable that the Phase I report posits a statement of aspirations for
the engineer of 2020 and closes with a statement of attributes thought
suitable for the engineer of 2020 that match the aspirations. These aspira-
tions and attributes express a bold optimism for the engineering profession
if it is willing to confront the possibilities for the future and to prepare for
them.
Ahead lies the challenge of debating and adopting, where appropriate,
the recommendations of this report for adapting engineering education to
the new century. The committee recognizes that “one size does not fit all”
and has attempted to suggest a suite of interventions, not all of which will
work in every institution. We expect that debate on these interventions will
take place over the course of the coming year and we hope that their intro-
duction into the engineering education infrastructure will rapidly follow so
that today’s students will indeed be prepared to practice engineering effec-
tively in 2020.

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.