Educating the Engineer of 2020: Humanities Requirements and Program Rank

On 28 August 2006, U.S. News & World Report ranked undergraduate engineering programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Fifty-nine of these programs were located at schools whose highest degree was a doctorate. The present study addresses the hypothesis that more highly ranked programs have broader humanities requirements than lower ranked programs. The term "humanities" is defined in the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 to include "the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life." Applying this definition, the graduation requirements of a statistically-significant sample of the 59 programs are compared to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the selected programs. Conclusions are presented.