I agree with Charles that part of the problem is the weakening of liberal arts standards by ABET, which may be a result of our profession not pushing hard enough to have stronger standards in ABET. As Charles does, I also push my students to challenge themselves in those general education choices.
Another part of the problem are the faculty and practitioners on advisory boards who are excellent in their technical field and who have achieved competence in communicating on a specific topic to a mixed audience. They still never stray far from their comfort zone of technical information. With those as role models (and why I'm concerned about relying only on mentorship, instead of a mix of mentorship and formal education), it is not surprising that students take the easy route out.
Many of us have introductory courses to the profession and we do allow students to brainstorm on potential projects to show them, without the technical content, what they can achieve. It's wonderful to see the bridges or the green building plans, etc., from those classes. BUT, how many professors of those classes can put these thoughts in a social and historical context? How many professors can talk in class about social dynamics and how that affects how a given segment of the public will approach a project? Bevin noted that young engineers can find the technical solution, but not the one that can get approved. He has figured out what works in his area, likely due to a mix of education and experience. Bevin has to understand psychology and group dynamics and economics and history and politics in order to get a project approved. Why isn't that brought into these introductory classrooms? If we taught this in the first semester as part of these introductory courses, we can spark the students' interests in the non-technical topics. We can re-create what Bevin does in his firm to an extent and we should be doing it.
Yesterday, I asked my students to first define resiliency, then sustainability, and when they stumbled, I gave them an example of our town to think about (which flooded last year). Then they had to figure out the difference between the two. Finally, I showed them ASCE policies 418 and 518. My colleagues would not have done that. They would have headed into the technical content instead of spending a class period putting it in context. That is a failing of our training programs for faculty and our expectations for faculty. They are technical experts, but their Ph.D. programs haven't required a broad-based education.
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Shirley Clark P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE
Professor
Penn State Harrisburg
Middletown PA
(717) 948-6127
Penn State HarrisburgProfessor
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-22-2018 04:37
From: Charles Haas
Subject: Integration of Disciplines in Engineering Education
Bevin - I totally agree with you. I try to push our students to take more liberal arts, and to push my faculty to advise them in that direction.
Far too many engineering students want to take "vocational" types of general education courses rather than broaden their horizons. Unfortunately, ABET has progressively weakened the requirement for true liberal arts courses.
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Charles Haas Ph.D., F.ASCE
LD Betz Professor of Environ. Eng. & Department Head - Civil, Architectural and Environmental Eng.
Drexel University
Philadelphia PA
(215) 895-2283
Original Message:
Sent: 08-21-2018 19:19
From: Bevin Beaudet
Subject: Integration of Disciplines in Engineering Education
I have been following this discussion closely and with great interest. As a now semi-retired and formerly successful utility engineer and director, I think I know what it takes for engineers to perform and contribute for their companies and society. If I were in charge, I'd have everyone get a liberal arts degree before taking any other specialty degrees. But this is not what I want to focus on at all today. There's been too much talk about this degree, this course, these teaching techniques, etc. What an engineer needs to succeed IMHO are solid communication skills, the ability to work with stakeholders and the ability to see beyond the data.
I've had so many young engineers working on a project come in and say: Here is the answer. It's clear from the data. After reviewing their work I have to get with them and say: Great job. You have identified the best engineering solution. But guess what - I never get the 5 votes I need to support or fund this solution because of this or that aspect of it. Let's get together with the team tomorrow and talk about how to make the project work. These are the skills engineers need to succeed. Problem solving is not just solving equations.
I have mentored many engineers in these skills over the years. Maybe that's the answer. More mentoring by engineers who have learned the hard way.
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Bevin Beaudet P.E., M.ASCE
President/Owner
Bevin A. Beaudet, P.E., LLC.
West Palm Beach FL
(561)225-1214
Original Message:
Sent: 08-18-2018 16:19
From: Shirley Clark
Subject: Integration of Disciplines in Engineering Education
As a former consulting engineer and now as a university faculty, this discussion has begun to devolve into an either/or choice for some people. On one hand, there are people who argue that the humanities or arts, etc., are vital in addressing our ethics to the public and to understanding why "those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it" (paraphrase from George Santayana). On the other hand, there are people who argue that the cost of a college education and the pressure to make it a 4-year education for the average student result in the need to cut the "extras" in favor of the technical.
What I read is that only a few people are arguing over how to make change within the system we have, at least until a different system can be created. As noted by others, these credits are often termed 'general education' and are designed to instill in people a well-roundedness that cannot be obtained in only technical classes. However, in many schools, including mine, in general, they are free choices. When I went to school (30+ years ago), we had to have a focus to our general education selections in at least one area of general education. We couldn't sail through only intro level classes but we had to have at least one majors, upper division class in a general-education area of our choosing. Mine was history and political science. I loved my classes in Contemporary Ideologies, and the ones in Modern China, and Modern Latin America. (oh, and nuclear history and politics). I also found my intro courses in psychology to be helpful as early in my career, my boss threw me to the wolves to explain a project to the public. That is one possibility. Rework the General Education requirement to force a student to choose a specialty and take one advanced course in that specialty.
Another possibility is to focus on the engineering educator. Why are the educators in engineering unable or unwilling to bring these additional concepts into class and at least expose students to them? In sustainable engineering, after Hurricane Harvey's destruction, my students had to brainstorm suggestions for rebuilding after Harvey. We looked at transportation and communications systems. We thought about healthy cities. We discussed, even briefly, environmental justice. We discussed why people respond the way they do in times of environmental disasters (which requires understanding both psychology and sociology). Even in the end, when we reached the chapter on technological innovations and the creation of the telecommuter, we were able to bring in information on how the use of technology, rather than face-to-face meetings, affect an employee's ability/interest in participating, as well as the technological requirement of having reliable high-speed internet everywhere and for every employee to have work-ready equipment at home. We discussed the implications for people of moving from mobile pollution sources (cars, buses, trains) to stationary sources to generate all that power required to transform dispersed homes into functional workspaces.
There are options to fix this in the system we have but we have to have the support of the alumni to help rethink how students approach 'general education' to see the value in those courses and in why they should select courses that both interest them and will contribute to their person BoK. Then we need to figure out how to instill these soft-skills into the teachings of engineering in the classroom.
It's not an either/or choice. It is how we impart the knowledge of humanity into our new engineers. Many are hungry to make a difference in the world and they want us to challenge them with the discussions and skills to address the problems we are leaving them.
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Shirley Clark P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE
Professor
Penn State Harrisburg
Middletown PA
(717) 948-6127
Penn State HarrisburgProfessor
Original Message:
Sent: 05-15-2018 14:36
From: Dilip Barua
Subject: Integration of Disciplines in Engineering Education
There was a topic 'Gap in Engineering Education . . .' we discussed in the Horizontal/Subsurface Infrastructure & Transportation forum. Among others, many professional engineers have felt that engineering education offered by many institutions lacks exposure to certain liberal arts courses – making them ill-equipped to the practicing world.
Glad to see a 2018 NAP publication (https://doi.org/10.17226/24988)
'The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education: Branches from the Same Tree.' In several articles, experts/authors discussed the needs for an integrated education: '. . . This view holds that a broad and interwoven education is essential to the preparation of citizens for life, work, and civic participation. An educated and open mind empowers the individual to separate truth from falsehood, superstition and bias from fact, and logic from illogic.'
This publication is a great addition to the new thinking – and I invite all to take the opportunity of looking at it and react.
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Dr. Dilip Barua, Ph.D, P.Eng, M. ASCE
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com
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