What Engineering Leaders Lead: The Career Outcomes of an Engineering Leadership Program’s Alumni Community

James N. Magarian; Reza S. Rahaman

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Joint Technical Session: Engineering Leadership Development Division and Engineering Management Division
Tagged Divisions: Engineering Leadership Development Division (LEAD) and Engineering Management Division (EMD)
Page Count: 35
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44614
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44614
Download Count: 671

Paper Authors

biography

James N. Magarian Massachusetts Institute of Technology orcid.org/0000-0003-3364-2213

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James Magarian, PhD, is a Sr. Lecturer and Associate Academic Director with the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership (GEL) Program. He joined MIT and GEL after nearly a decade in industry as a mechanical engineer and engineering manager in aerospace/defense. His research focuses on engineering workforce formation and the education-careers transition.

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biography

Reza S. Rahaman Massachusetts Institute of Technology orcid.org/0000-0003-1184-0446

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Dr. Rahaman returned to MIT in 2018 after a 29 year career in the Consumer Packaged Goods, Pharmaceuticals, and Agricultural Chemical Industries to lead the four School of Engineering Technical Leadership and Communication (TLC) Programs – the Gordon-MIT Program in Engineering Leadership (GEL), the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), the Graduate Engineering Leadership Program (GradEL), and the School of Engineering Communication Lab.

Immediately prior to MIT, Reza was the Vice-president of Research, Development, and Innovation for the Specialty Division of the Clorox Company. In that role he was accountable for developing innovation strategies for a diverse set of businesses and ensuring robust technology roadmaps and innovation pipelines to deliver growth and profit targets for 45% of the Clorox Company portfolio ($2.7bn in net customer sales). Among his businesses were Brita, Burt’s Bees, Glad, Hidden Valley Ranch, Fresh Step, and Kingsford Charcoal.

In addition to his passion for developing leaders, Reza is passionate about workplace equality. He was the Executive Sponsor of the Clorox Pride Employee Resource group, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, the world’s premier nonprofit promoting LGBT+ workplace equality from 2016-2021. He currently serves as a Board Ambassador. He and his husband James enjoy travel and hiking

Reza received his BSc.(Eng.) in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, and his MSCEP in Chemical Engineering Practice and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

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Abstract

This paper presents survey findings on the career outcomes of an undergraduate Engineering Leadership (EL) program’s alumni community. Findings were collected as part of a broader longitudinal assessment initiative recently launched at the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program (GEL), which acquires data from incoming, current, and outgoing program participants and from program alumni to track developmental progress and outcomes. While we briefly introduce this broader ongoing assessment initiative and its aims, we focus here on findings and implications from a specific survey instance: that which was deployed to GEL’s alumni who are currently working and have up to 11 years of work experience since completing the program (n = 293). We report the types of occupations undertaken by these Engineering Leadership alumni and examine how they compare to those of the broader School of Engineering in which the program resides. We present several characterizations of program alums’ careers as a function of years of work experience, including: occupation type, extent and nature of supervisory experience, whether individuals have undertaken “technical expert” roles, extent of career advancement, and key intersections of such variables (e.g., instances of roles simultaneously characterized as both supervisor and technical expert). We then present qualitative written responses from alumni about perceived challenges and opportunities related to career advancement, highlighting alums’ sentiments of how the EL program supported (or could have better supported) their careers. We find that a majority of alumni in our sample (63%) are working in managerial positions by the decade mark in their career, yet that these alumni have advanced into management along different paths, with some remaining more technical while retaining an engineer title, and others following a less technical executive pathway that nonetheless remains connected to engineering. We also find that alumni encounter career challenges in areas of organization-level leadership skills and in navigating possible career and role types. Based on findings, we discuss potential opportunity areas through which educators can enhance the effectiveness of EL programs.

Citation
Format

Magarian, J. N., & Rahaman, R. S. (2023, June), What Engineering Leaders Lead: The Career Outcomes of an Engineering Leadership Program’s Alumni Community Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44614

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This paper presents survey findings on the career outcomes of an undergraduate Engineering Leadership (EL) program’s alumni community. Findings were collected as part of a broader longitudinal assessment initiative recently launched at the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program (GEL), which acquires data from incoming, current, and outgoing program participants and from program alumni to track developmental progress and outcomes. While we briefly introduce this broader ongoing assessment initiative and its aims, we focus here on findings and implications from a specific survey instance: that which was deployed to GEL’s alumni who are currently working and have up to 11 years of work experience since completing the program (n = 293). We report the types of occupations undertaken by these Engineering Leadership alumni and examine how they compare to those of the broader School of Engineering in which the program resides. We present several characterizations of program alums’ careers as a function of years of work experience, including: occupation type, extent and nature of supervisory experience, whether individuals have undertaken “technical expert” roles, extent of career advancement, and key intersections of such variables (e.g., instances of roles simultaneously characterized as both supervisor and technical expert). We then present qualitative written responses from alumni about perceived challenges and opportunities related to career advancement, highlighting alums’ sentiments of how the EL program supported (or could have better supported) their careers. We find that a majority of alumni in our sample (63%) are working in managerial positions by the decade mark in their career, yet that these alumni have advanced into management along different paths, with some remaining more technical while retaining an engineer title, and others following a less technical executive pathway that nonetheless remains connected to engineering. We also find that alumni encounter career challenges in areas of organization-level leadership skills and in navigating possible career and role types. Based on findings, we discuss potential opportunity areas through which educators can enhance the effectiveness of EL programs.
AU  - James N. Magarian
AU  - Reza S. Rahaman
CY  - Baltimore , Maryland
DA  - 2023/06/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - What Engineering Leaders Lead: The Career Outcomes of an Engineering Leadership Program’s Alumni Community
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/44614
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--44614
ER  -