Engineering Education for the 21st Century

It is widely recognized that engineering will play a critical role in the success of the State of Michigan and of the United States in the 21^st century (The National Academies 2007).  But our current educational programs are the result of a Cold War driven curriculum focused on science, math, and analysis.  After 50 years of evolution the UM engineering curriculum, like that of many of our peer schools, is strongly aligned along disciplinary lines, has become focused on engineering science, and is packed full of technical courses with no room for addition and little room to maneuver.   Today fewer than 11% of our nation’s jobs are in manufacturing (J. J. Duderstadt 2005), yet engineering education as it stands was designed to produce the engineering employee of the post-World War II industrial manufacturing economy.  Our educational programs are challenged by a changing world.

The economic drivers for the 21^st century are different.  The 21^st century market seeks innovation and demands engineers who can conceive and create whole new classes of product and service; it is a market in which even the distinction between product and service is disappearing.  Even in large companies engineers are being asked to serve as internal consultants or entrepreneurs who can radically improve the company’s processes and products.  In many cases success will be due not to engineering, but rather due to the design, the emotional reaction of the customer to the product, and to its social appropriateness (Pink 2005).  This speaks to a need for our students to learn to look at society and identify needs, and understand the value they can bring to addressing that need.  As one of the College of Engineering Advisory Council members has expressed it, “there’s too much talk about problem solving—it’s about identifying opportunity” (College of Engineering Advisory Council Breakout Notes 2007).

Engineering services are becoming available worldwide, and routine engineering analysis is becoming a commodity that can be bought anywhere from cheap, high quality providers in India, China, Russia or other once inaccessible lands (Friedman 2007).   At the same time, the global impacts of climate change and a desire, even an imperative, to address environmental quality and sustainability demand a new approach to understanding the desirability of a technology.  This globalization of competition and globalization of human impact changes the value our students must bring to the world.  Where in the past we hoped that our graduates considered economics, now our graduates must also consider the lifecycle impacts of a system.  Where once we hoped that our graduates would analyze thermodynamic efficiency, now our graduates must also help analyze the ethical and social impacts of their technologies.

The loss of interest in engineering among U.S. students is yet another concern: few students enter engineering; few students believe it is worth the extra effort to complete an engineering degree; and many who begin, fail to finish.  It is distressing that those who depart for other than academic performance often cite poor teaching and inadequate advising as the reason for their leaving (Aldeman 1998).  If this was true in 1998, it will only be exacerbated now, 10 years on, as the Millennial Generation enters our classrooms after years of having their cognitive development driven by 21^st century information sources characterized by the inexpensive just-in-time delivery of information and rich multi-media content.  It is equally of concern that we are failing to attract, retain, and deploy the talents of women, Hispanics, African Americans, or Native Americans in engineering careers.

This blog will provide a place to air ideas on the future of engineering education at the University of Michigan.  The challenges of the future can be met, but creative ideas will be needed to meet them.