Success Stories In Partnering For Engineering Education

The George Washington University, with an Engineering Management Department that dates back to the fifties, and now one of the largest in the country, has developed and implemented new collaborative programs in engineering management and related areas. These programs have involved partnering with both Industry and Government in the fields of systems engineering and engineering management. The former has been determined to be a critical core competency and the latter a required skill, especially for engineers that have transitioned, or are transitioning, into management positions. Going beyond the open enrollment model, cohort-based programs have been established with three large industrial firms and one important government agency, all with major offices in the Washington DC metropolitan area. A cohort is a group of from 25 to 45 students that stay together in lock-step through a prescribed sequence of courses. Initial programs led to Graduate Certificates in Systems Engineering. Later implementations resulted in Masters degrees in Systems Engineering as well as a distance learning mode of delivery. These have constituted significant success stories and are described in some detail in this paper.