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Issues In Reshaping Innovative Professionally Oriented Graduate Education To Meet The Needs Of Engineering Leaders In Industry In The 21st Century

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Conference

2000 Annual Conference

Location

St. Louis, Missouri

Publication Date

June 18, 2000

Start Date

June 18, 2000

End Date

June 21, 2000

ISSN

2153-5965

Page Count

15

Page Numbers

5.413.1 - 5.413.15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--8520

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/8520

Download Count

484

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Paper Authors

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Thomas Stanford

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R.J. Bennett

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R. Jacoby

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M.I. Mendelson

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D.A. Keating

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Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 3255

Issues in Reshaping Innovative Professionally Oriented Graduate Education to Meet the Needs of Engineering Leaders in Industry in the 21st Century D. A. Keating1 T. G. Stanford1 R. J. Bennett2 R. Jacoby3 M. I. Mendelson4

University of South Carolina,1 University of St. Thomas,2 Cooper Union,3 Loyola Marymount University,4

1. Introduction and Context

1.1 Framing the Issues As we enter the 21st century, the further education of the nation’s graduate engineers in industry will become an increasingly critical component of national efforts to enhance competitiveness in the global economy. The nation’s graduate engineers play a central role in the engineering leadership of continual technology innovation in industry. Continual technological innovation is recognized as the principal driving force for competitiveness and sustained economic prosperity in the global economy. Central to technology competitiveness are the primary ingredients of technical knowledge, creativity, inventiveness and engineering leadership for continual product/process improvement, and breakthrough innovation. More than ever before, technological innovation and the supporting educational infrastructure are vital to the national interests of the United States.1 However, while the nation is preeminent in graduate education for scientific research, it is now evident that an educational change is needed to reshape professionally oriented graduate education for engineering leadership that can significantly improve the productivity and innovative competitiveness of industry. As an outgrowth of the 1999 ASEE Annual Conference — Graduate Studies Session on Innovative Concepts in Practice-Oriented Master’s Education, a steering committee was formed to address the issues that would effect this change at the national level. The steering committee has identified ten major issues associated with this change for professionally relevant graduate education for graduate engineers in industry that is in response to the 1995 National Research Council’s (NRC) report by the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. That report, “Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers,” calls for a broader, more flexible graduate education system to support national goals for science and technology.2 The required change represents a divergent education for professionally oriented graduate engineers in industry that emphasizes creative engineering and engineering leadership, as opposed to the convergent education that focuses on research for scientists.

1.2 Reshaping Graduate Education for Engineers in Industry The need to reshape professionally oriented graduate education to further develop engineering leaders and technology in industry is now evident by the nation’s necessity to improve its competitiveness in the technology- based economy. As the 1995 NRC report stated: “ … Scientists and engineers with PhD and other advanced degrees play a central and growing role in American industrial and commercial life. The traditional process of graduate education to the doctoral level, organized around an intensive research experience, has served as a world model for the advanced training of scientists and engineers. … Graduate education is basic to the achievement of national goals in two ways. First, our universities are responsible for producing the teachers and researchers of the future — the independent investigators who will lay the groundwork for the paradigms and products of tomorrow and who will educate later generations of teachers and researchers. Second, graduate education contributes directly to the broader national goals of technological, economic, and cultural development. We increasingly depend on people with advanced scientific and technological knowledge in our collective efforts in developing new technologies and industries … and maintaining the competitiveness of industry. Our graduate schools of science and engineering are therefore important not only as sources of future leaders in science and engineering, but also as an indispensable underpinning of national strengths hqà ƒ…‚†ƒr…v‡’Ã à †ˆ†‡hvvtà ‡urà p…rh‡v‰v‡’à hqà v‡ryyrp‡ˆhyà ‰vt‚…à rrqrqà ‡‚à hqq…r††Ã hà t…‚vtà …htrà ‚sà †‚pvhyà hqÃ

economic concerns.” 2

Stanford, T., & Bennett, R., & Jacoby, R., & Mendelson, M., & Keating, D. (2000, June), Issues In Reshaping Innovative Professionally Oriented Graduate Education To Meet The Needs Of Engineering Leaders In Industry In The 21st Century Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8520

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