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http://172.22.28.37:8080/xmlui/handle/1/295| Title: | Engineering for a changing a world |
| Authors: | James J. Duderstadt |
| Issue Date: | 2008 |
| Publisher: | The Millennium Project, The University of Michigan |
| Abstract: | An array of powerful forces, including demographics, globalization, and rapidly evolving technologies, is driving profound changes in the role of engineering in society. The changing technology needs of a global knowledge economy are challenging the nature of engineering practice, demanding far broader skills than simply the mastery of scientific and technological disciplines. The growing awareness of the importance of technological innovation to economic competitiveness and national security is demanding a new priority for basic engineering research. The nonlinear nature of the flow of knowledge between fundamental research and engineering application, the highly interdisciplinary nature of new technologies, and the impact of cyberinfrastructure demand new paradigms in engineering research and development. Moreover, challenges such as the off shoring of engineering jobs, the decline of student interest in scientific and engineering careers, immigration restrictions, and inadequate social diversity in the domestic engineering workforce, are also raising serious questions about the adequacy of our current national approach to engineering |
| Description: | practice and research, it is easy to understand why some raise concerns that we are attempting to educate 21st-century engineers with a 20th-century curriculum taught in 19th-century institutions. The requirements of 21st-century engineering are considerable: engineers must be technically competent, globally sophisticated, culturally aware, innovative and entrepreneurial, and nimble, flexible, and mobile (Continental, 2006). Clearly new paradigms for engineering education are demanded to: i) respond to the incredible pace of intellectual change (e.g., from reductionism to complexity, from analysis to synthesis, from disciplinary to multidisciplinary); ii) develop and implement new technologies (e.g., from the microscopic level of info-bio-nano to the macroscopic level of global systems); iii) accommodate a far more holistic approach to addressing social needs and priorities, linking social, economic, environmental, legal, and political considerations with technological design and innovation, and iv) to reflect in its diversity, quality, and rigor the characteristics necessary to serve a 21st-century nation and world (Sheppard, 2008). The issue is not so much reforming engineering education within old paradigms but instead transforming it into new paradigms necessary to meet the new challenges such as globalization, demographic change, and disruptive new technologies. As recent National Science Board workshops involving representatives of industry, government, professional societies, and higher education concluded, the status quo in engineering education in the United States is no longer sufficient to sustain the nation’s technological leadership (NSB, 2007). |
| URI: | http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/1/295 |
| Appears in Collections: | Articles |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering for a Changing World.pdf | 5.64 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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