Page 63 - 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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46 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

Program Flexibility
Reports from the National Center for Educational Statistics
(Adelman, 1999) and the American Association of Colleges and Uni-
versities (AAC&U, 2002) document the rising numbers of students who
already attend more than one institution during the course of their un-
dergraduate studies—a course-taking strategy sometimes referred to as
“swirling.” We simply note that there are many commendable examples
of articulation agreements that are arranged between two-year and four-
year institutions that facilitate the transition across that interface.
Summit participants did question what needs to occur to construct
an even more flexible degree path for students, for example, for a stu-
dent to concurrently enroll in calculus courses online from a for-profit
provider, to take physics at the local community college, to take man-
agement courses at a liberal arts college and engineering courses at a
research institution. Such an education path would clearly represent a
challenge of integration, and research and development of robust assess-
ment tools would be necessary to ensure degree quality.

An Alternative Engineering Degree

In one of the Summit breakout groups, the central topic of discus-
sion was the concept of engineering becoming a “liberal arts degree” for
the twenty-first century. The traditional liberal arts degree was charac-
terized as providing the knowledge, skills, and breadth of thinking nec-
essary to perform in leadership roles in government, industry, and, more
broadly, all aspects of society. As our everyday life becomes more driven
by technology and the panoply of decisions that we must make regard-
ing the use (or rejection) of technological solutions, understanding of
the “engineering approach” should likewise become more valued to all
well-informed citizens. In that regard, Summit participants from
Lafayette College and Princeton University discussed how their institu-
tions have developed bachelor of arts degrees for engineering that are
intended to appeal to a broader (or alternative) set of students than the
bachelor of science (B.S.) degree. In the case of Lafayette, the curricu-
lum for the first-year bachelor of arts (B.A.) student matches that of the
B.S. student; in succeeding years, the B.A. student chooses from a
broader set of electives in economics, management, and the liberal arts.
The faculty views the B.A. in engineering as the liberal arts degree for

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