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Session 3647

Partner With Industry to Increase Enrollment and Update Curriculum

Michael R. Kozak University of North Texas

What may be surprising to many nonscientists is the fact that the vast majority of products made today are being produced with traditional methods developed between forty and fifty years ago. 1 Technology Vision 20201 is a call to action, innovation, and change - a study stimulated by a request from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In 2020, manufacturing and operations will be agile, reliable, reproducible, clean, efficient, responsive, and a productive component of the US industrial supply chain. Continuous improvement will be a way of life. Customers will receive a consistent supply of reliable products that satisfy all requirements. New products will be introduced from technology platforms with a significant reduction in introduction cycle time. To achieve this projection, technical and business leaders state that industry should work with academe in order to exploit the potential of process science and engineering technology.1

To some extent, industry does work with academe. Many engineering technology departments look to their industrial advisory boards for guidance on staying competitive. However, members of these councils can do more than offer financial support, sponsor co-op programs and locate jobs for graduates. They can also be used to provide information about emerging technologies.2 Engineering technology can be enhanced by this direct link to the "real world" of industry. These educational ties between industry and academe can provide benefits to all involved.3

At the graduate program level, to paraphrase Hamid Khan of Ball State University, "Opportunities must be provided for bachelor degree graduates from engineering technology programs to keep abreast of rapid advances and changes occurring in their industrial environment. If not, they may fail to develop and grow, thus shortchanging their own organization by their own mediocrity."4 Effective graduates of engineering technology bachelor degree programs must be life-long learners if they are to be effective employees and advance into managerial/executive positions.

Approximately 270 Master of Science degree programs exist nationwide with more than 100,000 degrees awarded annually.5 As engineering technology has matured as a separate discipline, the need for master's degree programs has increased. Margaret Mount of the University of Dayton, in an etd list-serve e-mail message on August 6, 1997, stated that the number of institutions offering a Master's Degree in Engineering Technology has reached fourteen. (See Table 1.) This listing is only slightly different from that published in the Journal of Engineering Technology in 1995 which listed twelve institutions. (See Table 2.)6 However, current economic and societal factors should favor the development of additional MSET programs.

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Kozak, M. R. (1998, June), Partner With Industry To Increase Enrollment And Update Curriculum Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--7333