Engineering Leadership: A New Engineering Discipline

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), recognizing the growing emphasis on leadership development in engineering, has established a new engineering discipline called Engineering Leadership (E-Lead). The primary educational objective of the E-Lead degree is to develop engineers into leaders with engineering domain knowledge, broad leadership knowledge, and the ability to inspire and lead others. But E-Lead goes well beyond being a program, an initiative, or a cluster of classes added to a degree plan. The E-Lead program also develops a culture where students actively contribute to their own education and where individual contributions are valued and important. E-Lead students strive for excellence because they have a sense of ownership and power over their own education. Building this new discipline has inherent challenges, especially within a large public university. To help minimize having to “reinvent the wheel” in starting an ambitious student-centered degree program from scratch, a partnership with Olin College of Engineering was formed. Our institutions’ and faculties’ shared values and objectives have helped us navigate the pitfalls inherent in the development of new discipline. This paper seeks to share our lessons learned and specific strategies for successful program development and implementation. These lessons learned range from issues of program culture to crafting student experiences in the classroom. Introduction: the case for a new engineering discipline There is a growing demand for engineers and a need to embed professional, leadership and entrepreneurial skills into an engineering education. The national demand for engineers is well documented as attested by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and its 2007 publication Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future [1] in which they urged a focus on developing, recruiting, and retaining engineers. Data supporting this demand is documented in the National Science Foundation’s publication, Science and Engineering Indicators 2012 [2], using Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2002 to 2018 that project job openings from growth and needs replacement, which will top 160,000. There is an evermore urgent need for our higher education sector to graduate engineers who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to respond to a 21st-century world with its technical, social, and ethical complexities. Indeed, engineers’ abilities to meet these needs has been further highlighted in the NAE 2010 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 [3]. This call for even more urgent change occurs a mere six years since 2004 when NAE published The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century [4] in response to industry demand for a new engineer who possesses a skill set beyond the technically proficient ones to compete in the global economy. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), responding to these needs, and recognizing the growing emphasis on leadership development in engineering, has established a new engineering discipline called Engineering Leadership. UTEP is leading the charge by offering the first P ge 26635.2 Bachelor of Science in Engineering Leadership (E-Lead) degree in the country. The primary educational objective of the E-Lead degree is to develop engineers into leaders with engineering domain knowledge, broad leadership knowledge, and the ability to inspire and lead others. Graduates of the E-Lead program will not only be leaders, but will perpetuate leadership traits in those they serve. The Bachelor of Science in Engineering Leadership requires the completion of 125 credit hours. All students take 104 credit hours that are specified by the degree plan (general education courses and the engineering core classes) in addition to 21 credit hours to be customized by each student. Within the engineering core, 28 credit hours are within the E-Lead department and the remaining engineering credits are taken in other engineering departments in the UTEP College of Engineering. Students customize their degree plan by choosing 9 credit hours of Technical Electives and 12 credit hours of electives in an area of the student’s choice (see below). Technical electives must be engineering courses while the concentration electives provide various paths for students to pursue a focused path of study that can lead to an academic minor. In general, there are several distinct academic customization options that are available to students. These options are summarized below and in Figure 1. Options of elective study contributing towards: • An education certification in math, science, or engineering at a K-12 level. • An engineering academic minor by using upper and lower level engineering core courses, engineering electives, and concentration electives. • An accelerated MBA and additional engineering coursework. (NOTE: The accelerated MBS program requires an extra year of study). • A non-engineering academic minor expanding upon the core engineering education. Examples include, Commercial Music, Foreign Language, Art, Military Science, and many more. • A combined accelerated MBA or a non-engineering academic minor combined with an engineering minor. (NOTE: Several courses beyond the 125 hours will be highly likely. Number of additional courses depends on minor.) • A focused area of study such as Pre-med, Pre-law, or preparation towards a Peace Corp assignment.