educating tomorrow's engineering leaders
TRANSCRIPT
COMMENT
SEPTEMBER 2009 | VOLUME 12 | NUMBER 96
Educating tomorrow’s engineering leaders
A quick glance at the mission statements of
engineering schools across the world makes clear
that many are committed to educating the future
leaders of the engineering profession. But while
widely regarded as a core goal of engineering
education, little attention has historically been
paid to what ‘engineering leadership’ means and
how it can be nurtured. As part of the Gordon-
MIT Engineering Leadership Program, I have had
a chance to explore these questions. Liaising with
experts in engineering schools across the world, I
conducted a short review† to assess the status of
engineering leadership education and to identify
best international practice. While not an exhaustive
study, interesting issues emerge.
The first is that engineering leadership education is a
very new and under-resourced field. Most programs
have been developed in the last 5 years and are
managed on very small budgets and project teams,
often operating outside the formal curriculum. As
with many other educational initiatives, energy
and inspiration often come from high-profile and
passionate champions – and they consistently report
how hard it is to find suitably-qualified faculty staff
to design and deliver the programs. Their experience
reveals the dearth of resources and expertise
currently available to engineering schools wishing to
establish leadership programs. In this emerging field,
formal networks and centres of excellence are only
just emerging.
A second theme concerned international differences
in the understanding of ‘leadership education’. It
is a term readily embraced in the US, and features
prominently in many engineering undergraduate
programs. Outside the US, engineering educators are
often uncomfortable with the notion of ‘leadership
education’ as an endeavour in its own right. It is seen
to imply selecting and coaching a student elite –
an approach which they feel runs counter to their
educational culture of inclusiveness and equality.
However, while not labelled as engineering
leadership, there are a large number of successful
programs operating outside the US particularly
in Australia and Europe that subscribe to student
learning outcomes almost identical to those
found in US engineering leadership programs.
Although such programs do not explicitly refer
to a ‘leadership’ agenda, many common themes
are still apparent. For example, a strong focus on
‘student empowerment in their own engineering
professional development’ clearly emerged, with
many programs being partially or almost fully
managed and delivered by the students themselves.
Where the programs explicitly targeting ‘leadership’
are distinct, however, is in their underpinning aims,
which are often focussed on developing leaders
able to operate effectively inside and outside the
engineering profession or on improving the global
competitiveness of their country.
Delving more deeply into the educational philosophy
of the programs, other common features emerged.
A consistent theme in many of the programs is
a dual emphasis on instilling global awareness
and self-awareness. While program providers
recognise they still have some way to go, they
are keen to see their programs equipping students
for the global contexts of engineering practice in
the 21st century, for example by developing skills
to operate in international and multi-disciplinary
teams and to appreciate national and cultural
differences in approaches to engineering problems.
Across countries and across continents, program
leaders also underlined how leadership requires
the capacity for self insight and reflection, and
how, in consequence, they are seeking to develop
programs that build students’ awareness of their
own personal skill set and give them the ability to
analyse its impact on their leadership style. Among
the most highly-regarded are those which combine
the ‘global’ and ‘reflective’ dimensions within a
broader educational program. One example is
the thoughtfully designed Engineering Leadership
Development Minor (ELDM) at Penn State
University.
Looking to the future, it is clear that educating
tomorrow’s leaders will become an increasingly
prominent part of engineering programs. While
there are significant national and cultural differences
in how the term ‘leadership’ is understood, the
review points to a deeper consensus about the
knowledge and skills that tomorrow’s leaders
will require. In recent years, the profile and
knowledge-base for the related fields of ‘global
engineering education’ and ‘entrepreneurship
engineering education’ have grown considerably,
and partnerships across these communities will
be an important factor in the future development
of excellence in engineering leadership education.
For its part, this emerging field is set to bring new
educational ideas, resources and approaches to
benefit all engineering students. In particular, if
adequately resourced and institutionally supported,
we can expect engineering leadership education
to ‘lead by example’, providing models from
which engineering education as a whole can
learn. We can expect it to develop curricula which
provide students with a deeper understanding of
the national and global impacts of engineering
decisions and a greater understanding of their own
individual approach to engineering problems, great
and small.
Ruth Graham | Independent consultant | [email protected]
What do we really mean by ‘engineering leadership’, how can it be developed and nurtured?
† A summary report of this review entitled Engineering Leadership Education: a Snapshot Review of International Good Practice, will be published by the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program in Autumn 2009. For further details, please contact Bruce Mendelsohn at [email protected].
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