Conference Session

Communication: From Pecha Kucha to Bullets

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Isabel Simões de Carvalho P.E., ISEL, Lisbon, Portugal; Christy Moore, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

and society’” as well as “globalization and the relatedinternationalization of enterprise.” As a result, one of the crucial challenges facingengineering educators is the need to train future engineers for careers in a multi-faceted,global community that faces enormous energy and environmental problems (NAE, 2005;2008).Unfortunately, as Carol Del Vitto (2008) points out “university engineering programsoften focus on ‘hard’ technical skills” in spite of the fact that “it is becoming increasinglyevident that in order to compete in a global environment” engineering students mustdevelop “soft skills” that will allow them to understand other cultures and respond to thedemands of the global workplace. Researchers such as Grandin (2006) and Camuti

Conference Session

Integration of Liberal Education into Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Vassilios Tzouanas, University of Houston, Downtown; Lea Campbell, University of Houston, Downtown

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

both summativeand formative feedback to students are included.IntroductionAs evidenced by ABET-TAC Criterion 3e, an important soft skill for graduates to posses is theability to function effectively and to lead in teams. Graduates are finding that they are requiredto work within a team environment and to make contributions to the “bottom” line through theirteams as soon as they join the work force. In a 1997 survey of engineering graduates from amajor state university, teaming skills were considered extremely valuable with at least tworespondents indicating in their comments that it is not technical skills but soft skills such as theability to work effectively in teams and to communicate that differentiate those individuals whoare eventually