Time for Action for Engineering Education Reform

The topic of reforming engineering education has been discussed for quite a while. An article in the November/December 2002 issue of Civil Engineering quoted an article from the March 1934 issue of the magazine that stated, in part,

In the first place, the length of the regular engineering course has to be increased from four to five years; many broadening subjects must be added, the moral of students must be raised, and their interest in their work must be excited and maintained. … It is conceded that the engineer must take his proper place in society as a leader and manager rather than as merely a follower of the lawyer, the businessman, and the politician; and when he does so, an important step in the advancement of the engineering profession will have been taken. (Waddell 2002)

This was written more than 75 years ago. However, the statement is still appropriate today.

During the past two decades, numerous studies of engineering education have been undertaken, reports written, and recommendations made. Most authors have observed that engineering education needs more technical breadth and that students need much more professional, nontechnical, leadership knowledge and skills to function as professionals. Some recommend that the first engineering degree should be the master’s degree and that the bachelor’s degree should be a preliminary engineering degree or an engineering technician degree.

A recent survey and report prepared by the Task Committee on Implementing the Competency Strategy for the ASCE Board of Direction stated that 74% of ASCE members support additional professional education for engineers, especially in leadership and communication skills. In The 21st-Century Engineer: A Proposal for Engineering Education Reform, former ASCE President Patricia D. Galloway (2008) developed a very compelling argument as to why engineering education needs to be reformed. This book should be required reading for all engineers interested in engineering education. The book references the recommendations made by the organizations that have evaluated engineering education, and the following quotes summarize her points:

At the time of this writing, Galloway’s book has been translated into Chinese and Romanian. Engineering educators in those countries are working on ways to implement these recommended reforms. Change is coming, whether or not U.S. engineering educators participate in reforming the educational process.

The “Gathering Storm” report (Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century 2007) was revisited five years after the original report was written (Rising Above the Gathering Storm Committee 2010). The new report noted that the United States had made some progress in improving its education and competitive situation, but that competitor nations had made more progress, and thus the United States’s relative situation was worse than five years previously. An article in Civil Engineering magazine described the new report’s conclusions as follows:

Five years after the release of the National Academies’ report Gathering Storm, its authors conclude in an update that the United States has yet to shore up its lagging competitive posture. In the absence of significant improvements to the nation’s research and education capabilities, the United States will cede its leadership in science and technology to other nations, the author warns, causing “dire consequences” for the country overall as well as for its citizens. …

If the United States is to maintain its position as a global leader in the area of science and technology, the solutions will have to come from a range of fields, including education, business, and law. Meanwhile, both the private and the public sector will be challenged to work together to devise the solutions that are needed. (Landers 2010)

We have a long way to go to keep the United States in the lead.

Notwithstanding a series of debates, studies, and reports on the advantages of the five-year program for a civil engineering degree, little action has been taken. We engineers have known for a very long time what needs to be implemented to improve engineering education. Apparently what has been missing is the leadership and commitment to preparing engineers to be professionals. The time has come to take appropriate action and implement the necessary reform to keep the United States competitive in the global marketplace.

ASCE has been working on this situation for a long time. In 2001, they established the Task Committee on Academic Prerequisites for Professional Practice. During a decade of work on raising the requirements for a professional engineer, this committee accomplished a lot, and in 2008 it published the BOK-2 (ASCE 2008). The BOK-2 addresses most of the required nontechnical topics, but it lacks emphasis or depth of knowledge in the nontechnical area of the education phase, which is necessary to prepare the graduate engineer to function as a master builder and meet the requirements for ASCE’s Vision 2025 (ASCE 2009). All the professional knowledge topics are assigned to the bachelor’s category. The BOK-2 could be improved significantly by assigning at least half of the fifth year to professional topics over and above what is covered in the bachelor’s category (see ASCE 2008, Fig. 3). The University of California Berkeley is starting a new Engineering Professional Master’s Program in the fall of 2011 (see www.funginstitute.berkeley.edu). This program, which has leadership as its core, will go a long way to provide the leadership and professionalism required by the 21st-century engineer. The Berkeley engineering master’s program would be a good guide to follow in updating the BOK-2’s fifth-year education knowledge topics.

All 21st-century engineers will need a broad technical and professional degree as the base to succeed in industry and/or to advance their education further. The focus on the technical component of the curriculum needs to be shifted to include the nontechnical, professional, and leadership component that is equally or more important to the success of 21st-century professional engineers. The advanced technical knowledge required for many engineering jobs cannot be met with the base five-year professional engineering master’s program. A five-year professional program cannot meet both the professional requirements and the requirements for advanced knowledge currently in an advanced technical engineering degree.

Implementing this engineering education reform goes to the core of helping make the United States more competitive in the global marketplace. A major part of global commerce and trade requires engineering input. The Gathering Storm reports discussed in detail how the United States is losing its competitive edge, and reforming education is a significant part of rectifying this situation. Engineering creativity and leadership are important to creating the United States’ competitive ability.

The BS–MS discussion should be concluded, and the MS should be required as the first engineering degree. The BS then would be an engineering technician or preliminary engineering degree. Graduates with this BS degree could fill many jobs for which a full engineering degree is not required.

The change in academic culture over the past 50 years toward a concentration on the technical side of engineering while ignoring the nontechnical side has not served the engineering profession well. During this period, public respect for engineers has steadily eroded. The public considers engineers to be only technical problem solvers. Little research has been done during this time on the nontechnical component of engineering. The culture needs to change to correct this (Kirschenman 2011b).

During the preparation of the ASCE BOK-1 and BOK-2 documents, there was a lot of discussion about changing the way engineering is taught. The intent was to get more student interaction and to move away from the lecture–listening mode of teaching–learning. Facilitating more student interaction is a proven way for students to learn some of the soft skills such as communication. However, there do not appear to be proper incentives for faculty to move in this direction. The emphasis continues to be on the lowest cost for information dissemination, not necessarily on student learning. An emphasis on using class projects, class teams, and oral and written reports is a way for engineering students to partially reach the objective of obtaining engineering soft skills while learning the main course topics (Kirschenman 2011a). Teams need leaders and followers; therefore, some aspects of communication, team building, and leadership skills are obtained. However, to do this requires additional faculty effort and time, so it is not popular with faculty or university administrators.

It is commonly said that engineers are poor communicators, as if it were somehow in engineers’ DNA to be poor communicators. In a paper entitled “Why Lawyers Are Better Communicators Than Engineers,” Bergh (2006) discussed the difference in the two professions’ education process, and it is obvious that much of the poor communication skills of engineers is due to their education. Perhaps engineers can learn from how lawyers are educated to improve their own communication ability.

Having communication ability is extremely important for one to be a successful leader. It is unfortunate that engineering education has failed to grasp this fact and provide engineering students with the communication skills that are required. Therefore, it is necessary that the education process be evaluated to determine what changes are required to ensure that communication education is properly addressed. One does not merely take a university course in communication to become an effective communicator; communication skills are learned by understanding the applicable theory and then practice, practice, practice. Communication should be taught in all engineering courses. Many communication opportunities exist or could be created in the university setting to give students the opportunity to learn how to be effective communicators during their four or five years on campus. One should not continue a process or procedure just because that is the way it has been done or that is how one learned to do it. There is no excuse for perpetuating the myth that engineers are not able to learn communication and, therefore, that it is not necessary to teach it in the engineering education process. This concept must be changed.

Due to the restraints and demands on faculty and university administrators, it will be difficult for engineering education reform to be accomplished by academia on its own. It will need the help and assistance of members of industry. If industry members require that graduate engineers have both professional and nontechnical knowledge and skills, academia will respond and provide it. Members of industry could have a great deal of influence on the education process through their hiring preferences and their influence with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and by establishing these professional credentials as criteria for ABET accreditation. Industry members must provide the leadership and support necessary to make this engineering education reform occur.

Reaching the objective of engineering education reform will take a coordinated effort by all of the major engineering, construction, manufacturing, and education professional societies working as a team. The following recommendations on how to improve the engineering educational process are offered:

The anticipated benefits of improving engineering education are as follows:

The time for action has come. It is time to reform and upgrade engineering education to prepare graduates to function as professionals and master builders. Numerous studies over the past decades, dating back at least to 1934, have noted the same deficiencies in the four-year education curriculum. It is time for action and for reform of the education process to prepare graduate engineers to function in the 21st-century global society. The first engineering degree should be the master’s degree. The bachelor’s degree would then be a preliminary engineering or technical degree. The focus of the education of engineers must be shifted to the nontechnical, professional and leadership component, which is just as important as or even more important than the technical component for the success of the 21st-century engineer. This proposal addresses the additional professional engineering education, especially in leadership and communication, that 74% of ASCE members support. Engineers will again be considered professionals in the eyes of the public. Engineers will be known and respected for their leadership and communication ability. The time for action is now.