A New Vision for Center-Based Engineering Research (2017) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 31-38
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From page 31... ...
Team research leaders are often chosen based on their technical expertise, and this is helpful in establishing a vision for the research effort and roadmaps for achieving the goals.1 Leaders of convergent engineering research centers (CERCs) will face unique challenges in integrating the broad diversity of disciplines involved, vocabularies, perspectives on the problems, and working modes, as well as a research team that is geographically disperse.
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The center director will have significant and demonstrated capability and capacity to raise external funds from the private and public sectors. Leadership will be inspirational and collaborative and will drive teams to success by encouraging innovation, nurturing diversity, and creating a collegial environment.3 The skills needed for center leaders include intellectual vision and leadership, management of center activities, successful entrepreneurial experience, a track record of delivering results, and ability to communicate clearly and effectively with diverse audiences such as team members, sponsors, partners, host institutions, press and media, and the public.
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From page 33... ...
Instructors encourage intrinsic student motivation and serve as mentors in the innovation process. Examples of this approach include Finland's Aalto University and Denmark's Aalborg University with comprehensive projects-based curricula; Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Global Projects Program, where student teams go to locations around the world to create innovative solutions to local community needs; Purdue University's EPICS service-learning design program; Stanford University's d.school and Bio-X experiential programs; and Olin College, which has no discipline-specific departments and no tenured professors and has, instead, a projects-based curriculum with an entrepreneurial focus.
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CERCs will provide ample opportunities for students to exercise their ethical training and human values principles, but the primary responsibility for imparting this training should be with the host institution. FINDING 3-3: Ongoing changes in engineering education include a greater emphasis on collaborative, team-based experiential learning and a focus on creativity and design activities and entrepreneurship, as well as ethical aspects, which better prepare students to succeed in center-like, multidisciplinary environments throughout their careers.
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RECOMMENDATION 3-3a: Centers should offer students opportunities to exercise design and entrepreneurship skills obtained through their departmental coursework by providing experiences such as internships and exposure to industrial and public sector expertise through collaborations, workshops, seminars, and personnel exchanges, and opportunities to discuss the ethical dimensions of their work. Current ERC education programs have been most successful when they were tailored to both the institution strength and the local community needs.
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DIVERSITY Studies have shown that research teams with broader cultural knowledge and perspectives can produce more innovative and robust solutions to science and engineering problems.24 A more diverse engineering workforce is an imperative when addressing complex problems with worldwide societal impacts, and the diversity of the U.S. talent pool can become a competitive advantage.
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This need has been documented in many reports, including the 2011 NRC report Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads,27 which builds on the 2007 report Rising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.28 The goal of increasing ethnic and gender diversity remains essential to priming the engineering workforce pipeline of the future. The key to success is to have teammates with the unique perspectives required to explore the opportunity being addressed.
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From page 38... ...
Hsu, and C Zoltowski, 2015, "Insights from a First-Year Learning Community to Achieve Gender Balance," 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
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