AC 2009-1212: WHEN THE LIGHT GOES ON: ILLUMINATING THE PATHWAYTO ENGINEERINGSusan Freeman, Northeastern University Susan Freeman, Beverly Jaeger, and Richard Whalen are members of Northeastern University’s Gateway Team, a group of teaching faculty expressly devoted to the first-year Engineering Program at Northeastern University. The focus of this team is on providing a consistent, comprehensive, and constructive educational experience that endorses the student-centered and professionally-oriented mission of Northeastern University.Beverly Jaeger, Northeastern UniversityRichard Whalen, Northeastern University
to CoE students are Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering); ≠ providing FEP students with academic, career, and personal advising in a proactive manner; ≠ fostering a sense of community among FEP students, other CoE students, the CoE faculty, and the balance of the UofA community.The FEP is executed via two sub-programs – the Freshman Engineering Academic Program(FEAP) and the Freshman Engineering Student Services Program (FESSP). These sub-programsare executed by a faculty Director, two full-time professional staff members, one full-timeinstructor, volunteer
of students, faculty and staff who are interested in educating studentsin making environmentally responsible decisions. KIET received NationalScience Foundation CCLI Phase 1 Grant (DUE#051132) to design and teach theEnvironmentally Conscious Design and Manufacturing class and start theGreener Engineering Organization (GEO), a student club, in Fall 2007. Since itsformation, GEO has improved environmental awareness, stimulatedenvironmental action, and enhanced the image of Kettering as anenvironmentally conscious university. They have improved the local anduniversity community by giving its members service learning, leadership, andnetworking opportunities. Furthermore, they initiated paper and beveragecontainer recycling programs, and
) recognize that small personal decisions can have an effect ongroup dynamics and institutional decisions; (3) develop habits of mind; (4) educators need tocreate a space and opportunity to discuss these kinds of issues; (5) demonstrate the importance ofmoral imagination; and (6) encourage students to recognize their own biases and weaknesses.There was general agreement that helping graduate students understand the various contexts theywill be required to work in and make decisions about is key to producing more ethical engineersand scientists.One of the most exciting benefits of the workshop for the PI and Co-PIs was the detailedfeedback we received on the instructional models we have been developing. We receivedvaluable feedback regarding
planned major). What’s next for you? (Or, if not planning on becoming an engineer, explore why they’ve made this decision.)3. What do you imagine yourself doing on a day-to-day basis? (Or, if not planning on becoming an engineer: What do you imagine engineers do on a day-to-day basis?)4. What would you say it takes to be a good (insert student’s career choice)? How are you at (insert characteristics student mentions)? Are there things about yourself that you think you need to work on to become a successful (xxx)?Entire interviews, not just responses to the questions listed here were analyzed. In case study-based research, triangulation of data sources is an important aspect of qualityresearch 36-39. In addition to semi-structured
included general demographic data, including the student’s age, grade in school, raceor ethnicity, and gender. Students were also asked if they had a family member who is anengineer, and if so, to list the relationship of that family member to the student (i.e., mother, Page 14.1014.4father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc.). If a student had a relative who is an engineer, thatstudent was asked to estimate how much influence that relative had on the student’s decision toexplore engineering as a career option. Student responses were compiled and are presented inthe results section of this paper.3.2 Student preferences for
STEM careers.In general, the influence of parents and teachers is critical for STEM career decisions. However,parents are the more important influence across all groups. In addition, students indicated thattheir interest in a career field is a very crucial factor. The message from this is clear. Toincrease selection of STEM careers, we must make sure that parents understand the quality andpotential of these life opportunities with their sons and daughters. In addition, we must be surethat students are presented with a positive image of STEM careers through high school curriculaso they can develop an interest in these fields. Page
above do not exhaust the possibilities for why the gap might exist, although theydo suggest possible routes for considering how to address these differences. And the evidencedoes suggest that this gap results in our women engineers being shortchanged. Data suggest thatself-confidence in a particular academic area affects whether a person will attempt or persist in a Page 14.614.12task, and may be a key to career decisions.31 While the overall confidence of women in these areas may be high, they may be disadvantaged compared to their male peers when it comes topursuing opportunities such as graduate school and engineering positions. Having
the skill-sets required of engineers to grow from: a) Early-career level engineering leadership responsibilities [Project engineering levels I - III] b) Mid-career level engineering leadership responsibilities [Technical program leadership levels IV-VI] c) Senior-career level engineering leadership responsibilities [Technology policy leadership levels VII-IX] This educational transformation will enable an opportunity for experienced graduate engineers to grow through the professional master of engineering (M.Eng.) and the professional doctor of engineering (D.Eng.) levels of proficiency while the degreed engineer continues his or her full-time employment in industry. Also
). The EEO culminates with an Engineering Entrepreneurship capstone course offered by the College of Engineering that draws upon case studies and personal experiences of engineers-entrepreneurs.Founded in 1848 and located in Canada’s National Capital region of Ottawa – Gatineau, theUniversity of Ottawa – Canada’s University – is the largest bilingual university in the countryoffering undergraduate and graduate programs of studies in English, French, or both languages tomore than 36,000 students. With its 1,800 undergraduate and 600 graduate students, 115 regularfaculty, and 65 staff members, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Ottawa is amedium-size (by Canadian standards) school that offers undergraduate and graduate
who had a half-time release for graduate programresponsibilities coordinated the program. The assistant dean worked with a graduate educationcommittee to review applications and make policy decisions. The assistant dean positionreported directly to the dean.Nearly all of the twenty-eight students enrolled in the program at that time were part-timestudents, primarily working adults returning to school for an advanced degree to further theircareer goals or expand their opportunities.By Fall of 2008 there were 69 students in the major (which included a few non-degree seekingstudents). Of those 69 total students, 22 were female, the remaining 47 male. Nineteen of the69 were fulltime students. The average enrollment load was around 6 hours (2
work in an engineering firm during the summer, having faculty members spend theirsabbatical leaves in an engineering firm, and having full time engineers spend a year of paidleave in a university. There also exist situations where companies send engineers to theclassroom at the expense of the companies and situations where engineers with many years ofpracticing experience decide to have a second career in academia. Students in primarilyengineering technology programs indicated that as a result of including real world engineeringexperiences in the curriculum they became more job ready and were actually receiving job offersas a result.13,14 More recently and partly in response to ASCE’s Body of Knowledge15 report andPolicy 46316, many schools
pursue a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, working with Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas at the University of Texas at Austin as an NSF-IGERT fellow. Her research explores the biosensing properties of conductive and recognitive hydrogels. She has authored 1 refereed publication in press, and 1 refereed publication in submission, in addition to conference presentations and proceedings.Margaret Phillips, University of Texas, Austin Margaret A. Phillips is a doctoral student in Biomedical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Margaret graduated magna cum laude from Saint Louis University in 2006 where she received her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering. An NSF-IGERT fellow, she is
students participated in a research seminar, as in Table 2, to help reinforce the terminalend of the pipeline. Graduate school faculty, coordinators, and students assisted ECSE III withscholarly writing, research protocol, and analytical co-curricular activities (e.g., scavenger huntthroughout UWM libraries, tour of an industrial research facility). That effort helped ECSE IIIstudents prepare a year earlier for the Sophomore Research Experience b (SRE) program. RonaldE. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program interns shared their projects with ECSE IIIstudents in a mutual learning exchange, also. The Committee on Institutional CooperationSummer Research Opportunity Program (CIC/SROP) participants explained to ECSE IIIstudents how to prepare
AC 2009-1116: IMPROVING EARLY INTEREST AND CONFIDENCE INENGINEERING: CREATING PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES, K-12TEACHERS, THEIR STUDENTS, AND ENGINEERSElizabeth Eschenbach, Humboldt State University Beth Eschenbach is a Professor of Environmental Resources Engineering at Humboldt State University. Beth left civil engineering as an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, and graduated with honors in mathematics and in psychology. She obtained her MS and PhD at Cornell in Environmental and Water Resources Systems Engineering. She completed a postdoc at the Center for Advanced Decision Support in Water and Environmental Systems (CADSWES) at UC Boulder. Beth’s career goals include increasing the
members endeavor to prepare their students for a variety ofcareer paths within the engineering industry. Several of those paths require or arebolstered when students decide to pursue licensure to practice as professional engineers.As students, individuals learn about the merits of professional licensure from a variety ofsources. Not to be overlooked is the influence that professors, licensed as professionalengineers, have on their students and the opportunity to act as a role model to thosestudents considering a career path that includes professional licensure.The research question explored during this study was; “Among currently licensed civilengineering faculty members, what are the perceived values of professional experienceand of licensure as
junior high school through college is of vital importanceto the field of engineering education. Producing a sufficient number of engineering graduatesdepends directly upon the number and quality of students that enter college and selectengineering as a major. Students that are lost to engineering by dropping out of high school;choosing not to pursue a college degree; dropping out of college; or switching out of engineeringrepresent “leaks” from the engineering education pipeline. Some of these students would nothave ultimately earned an engineering degree due to greater interest in other fields of study, butothers might have persisted to graduation with greater preparation, encouragement, andengagement. This study examines the factors that
first of thesefocused on eliciting students’ notions of current career goals that were then juxtaposed againstthe multi-faceted aspects of engineering student graduates (females and underrepresentedpopulations). The second of these were facilitated by project directors and were featured on thedifferent Engineering fields. Students and parents explored Engineering Go For It!: Make aDifference, Change the World10 with an interactive presentation from the facilitators. Theexperience started with a review of images from the “Engineering Is…” sections (pp. 4-9) of thepublication that was followed by small group discussions with participants and family members
context. This study is part of a larger body of work, the AcademicPathways Study (APS), conducted by the NSF-funded Center for Advancement of EngineeringEducation (CAEE).Introduction Which students persist in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields?Looking for ways to increase persistence rates, we frequently research the characteristics thatdifferentiate persisters and non-persisters. However, the choice to persist may not be as binaryas these two terms would imply. The research reported here begins to unravel the complexitiesof persistence by looking at the choice to be an engineer as a process extending over time andinvolving continually motivated decisions. By taking the perspective of students who persist inearning
teams that have had access tocommunication systems. 6 What factors are behind these unproductive teams? How can weexplain why two members of a three-person team report satisfaction with the team’scommunication and collaborative processes while the third member indicates dissatisfaction inthe same areas? Research studies in Leadership Communication and Organizational Behaviorsuggest that differences in evaluation of communication levels within teams often stem fromeach group member’s perception of particular situations. 4,7,8 Put another way, communicationpatterns found in engineering design groups suggest that effective groups adopt an intricately-connected web of both cognitive and social interactions.9,13Perceptual FactorsPerception is
procedures. The findings of this paper may bebeneficial to students as they graduate and become a member of an organization. For example,being aware of local, national, and global issues could assist a firm to make correct financial andmanagement decisions. Therefore, the issues presented in the paper may assist engineers to bebecome truly professional and an asset to an organization.AcknowledgementThe authors wish to recognize Ms. Linda Dousay for her assistance with the production activitiesinvolved in preparing this paper.Bibliography1) Anon “Application in the Construction Industry Source”, Safety through Design, 2000, p- 217-2262) Ashford, J. L. (1990). “The management of quality in construction.” E & FN Spon, London.3) Carpenter, D. “Using
toconstrained schedules and competing time demands. However, frequent contact with individualsover time allows advisors to build student strengths in self-determination while tailoring advicedirectly to changing interests.The talk will highlight advising opportunities from outreach, through retention, continuing tograduation, and post graduate interactions that fit within student progress towards theirindividual careers. Appropriate advising content for a technically rigorous chemical engineeringprogram will be used as examples of how to motivate students towards exploring options andmaking decisions that open new doors to professional development. The issue explored is thatself-determination comes from inside the student and that confidence in
AC 2009-1254: ON-LINE DISTANCE EDUCATION AND STUDENT LEARNING:DO THEY MEASURE UP?Carole Goodson, University of Houston Carole Goodson is a Professor of Technology at the University of Houston. As an active member of ASEE, she is a member of the Academy of Fellows, a past Editor of the Journal of Engineering Technology, a past Chair of PIC IV and the ERM Division, and a past Chair of the Gulf Southwest Section of ASEE.Susan Miertschin, University of Houston Susan L. Miertschin is an Associate Professor in the Information Systems Technology program at University of Houston. She is a member of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), active in the Engineering Technology
in which the majority of undergraduates received SME education. Initially335 students were interviewed by phone; interviews were recorded, transcribed, andcoded. A second round of interviewing with an additional 125 students on six extracampuses led to a total of 460 students in the study. Findings from this comprehensivestudy revealed students who had switched out of SME majors and those who chose toremain were more similar than different in abilities, motivations, and study-relatedbehaviors. Those students retained had developed coping strategies and had experiencedfaculty intervention at critical decision points in their academic or personal life. Theissues and concerns of students who left SME and those who stayed were the same acrossall
from faculty, the 2001 ABET review, theMinority Engineering Program, industry, alumni, graduating seniors, and otherstakeholders, have sought to impart design concepts and related computational tools atthe lower division to improve student preparation for the senior design capstone courseand their future careers. These changes resulted in a mechanical design sequence ofcourses (shown in Figure 1) that comprise of the freshman orientation course ME101, theone-year sophomore design sequence ME286AB, the junior-level machine design courseME330, and a year of senior design. In this paper, this sequence will be referred to as thedesign-stem sequence. ME101 Intro ME286A ME286B ME330 ME486A/B to
which all undergraduates are required to take at least three WI classes forgraduation. These classes are a standard part of their curricula but contain specific writingcomponents. Specially trained student-tutors work with their fellows to ensure writingskills are being developed.We propose a similar idea with ethics education.The critical part of our program is a three-phase tutor-training program for upper divisionand graduate students. In Phase I, students are introduced to the major ethical philosophiesby instructors playing the leading thinkers of those traditions. For example, an instructormight play Socrates or Confucius or Augustine or Kant, thus providing a more personal
Engineering curriculum as it teaches thestudent how to select appropriate devices for electronically measuring the biomedicalphenomena. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two courses in bioinstrumentation areoffered on an annual basis. BME 310, Introduction to Biomedical Instrumentation is a required, Page 14.734.3core course in the undergraduate Biomedical Engineering program geared towards sophomorestudents, while BME/ECE 462, Medical Instrumentation is an advanced course intended forseniors and first-year graduate students 1-2. BME 310 is offered to around 40 students eachspring, while BME/ECE 462 is offered to around 20 students each fall
at the University of Washington were offered in an agreement with WilliamBoeing in exchange for donating a wind tunnel to the University.vi At New York Page 14.1218.2University in 1923, two mechanical engineering faculty, Prof. Collins Bliss and Prof.Alexander Klemin, who studied under Hunsaker at MIT, began offering students anelementary aerodynamics class. In 1924 an experimental program was approved by theUniversity. The program was a success and it was decided to make it permanent.However, to do so, external funding estimated at $500,000 was required. Harry workedwith NYU Chancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown to locate funds. Harry took a letter
supervising graduate students in dynamics and control systems. He was awarded the Early Career Teaching Excellence Award in 2007 from the Faculty of Engineering.© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Award in 2007 from the Faculty of Engineering. Page 14.736.2© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Innovation and Integration in an In-house First-Year Engineering Program: A fast track to Engineering EnculturationAbstractThe first-year of the four-year Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) program at the Universityof Auckland has been taught entirely in-house by the School of Engineering since 1996,when university-wide structural
underpinning principles and ethosadhered to by engineers in research, academia, and industry. Subsequent classes were team-taughtby the MEE faculty in concert with five practicing engineers from local industry. Faculty membersshared their careers as research engineers, and practicing engineers exposed students to projectsencountered in the professional workplace.Participating engineers from industry and government were recruited from local companies throughthree techniques: personal contacts made at university-sponsored conferences and career fairs;telephone calls to local firms’ outreach coordinators; and members of the industrial advisory boardof the College of Engineering. Practicing engineers generally responded favorably to requests toshare their