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Session 1455

Enabling the U.S. Engineering Workforce to Perform: Recognizing the Importance of Industrial Engagement In Professional Graduate Engineering Education J. M. Snellenberger,1 D. H. Quick,1 I. T. Davis,2 J. P. Tidwell,3 J. O’Brien,4 R. M. Haynes,5 D. R. Depew,6 D.D. Dunlap,7 D. A. Keating,8 T. G. Stanford 8

Rolls-Royce Corporation 1 / Raytheon Missiles 2/ The Boeing Company 3 Hewlett-Packard Company 4/ Northrop Grumman Space Technology 5 Purdue University 6/ Western Carolina University7 University of South Carolina 8

Abstract

This is the first paper in the panel session of the National Collaborative Task Force for reform of professionally oriented engineering graduate education to make it more relevant to the needs of industry to ensure a strong U.S. engineering workforce for competitiveness. Because the practice of engineering for technological innovation is changing and because engineering education cannot meet all of the requirements relevant to the needs and skill sets required for career-long growth of engineers in industry, within the standard four-year baccalaureate curriculum, there is a heightened sense of urgency that major educational reform is needed at the graduate level. The demand for a strong U.S. engineering workforce with advanced technical skills, practical engineering experience, and progressive professional skills from entry-level through executive engineering leadership levels of technological innovation in industry is forcing sweeping reform in engineering graduate education. This paper represents the work of the newly established National Collaborative for Engineering Graduate Education Reform, which is taking a key leadership role with industry to enact purposeful reform in engineering education at the graduate professional level in order to continue the career-long growth process of working engineering professionals in industry to spur innovation, unleash creativity, and enhance U.S. competitiveness. The paper addresses the national importance of this reform, including the role of U.S. engineering graduate education in supporting the growth of the nation’s engineers who lead the continuous development of technology for the competitive advantage of technology-based U.S. industries in the global economy; the vital role of industry’s capacity to sustain world-class technology development and innovation for the nation’s economic growth and national security; and the important role that engineers play throughout their professional industrial careers in conceptualizing, designing, developing, innovating, and leading the systematic process of engineering for continual improvements, developments, and breakthrough of new technologies for corporate competitive advantage.

Professional Education for Engineers - The New Challenge

If the U.S. is to remain preeminent in creating new innovative technologies through engineering to enhance its economic prosperity and national defense, the U.S. system of engineering graduate education must remain the world’s leader - and new models for professionally oriented graduate education must be created and implemented that better support the lifelong development needs of the graduate engineering workforce in industry.

America’s advanced engineering talent in industry has become the nation’s most underdeveloped resource for innovation and substantial changes need to be made in U.S. engineering graduate education to better meet the graduate needs of this national resource. As the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public “Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Snellenberger, J., & Keating, D. (2004, June), Enabling The U.S. Engineering Workforce To Perform: Recognizing The Importance Of Industrial Engagement In Professional Graduate Engineering Education Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--14082