Transitioning From Engineering Technology To Engineering: Relocating Critical Material

The University of Southern Indiana is transitioning from Engineering Technology to Engineering. For twenty-seven years, USI has taught engineering technology, currently supporting Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering Technology, Civil Engineering Technology, and Mechanical Engineering Technology. These three programs will be replaced by a single degree, the Bachelor of Science in Engineering. Incoming freshmen for the fall 2002 semester were admitted into the engineering program, while transfer students only were accepted into the engineering technology program. The first two years of the new engineering program are in place, while almost the entire engineering technology program is still operating. In spring 2003, no students, including transfer students, will be admitted to engineering technology, and the first three years of the engineering program will be populated with students. Many issues must be explored when a school changes program curricula, such as which classes to update and transition versus classes to delete; pre-requisites and co-requisites; class sequences; laboratory sessions; classroom assignments; faculty loading; and many more. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc (ABET) criteria [1] point to distributed emphasis on the “soft skills”, such as technical writing, public speaking, and working on teams, while maintaining student performance in the technical areas. Two of the author’s classes, which were originally developed to enhance student performance during the Capstone course, were scheduled for deletion. However, the experience level needed to be maintained, so this material needed to be absorbed into other courses while maintaining course and program dynamics. This paper explores the issue of relocating critical material from deleted classes into classes that are transitioning into the new program.