1. (figures from Module- Galileo and the Resistance Beams)
Liberal Studies in Engineering – A Smoother Pathway into the Profession
Jessica O. Perez, Claremont Graduate University, David E. Drew, PhD, Claremont Graduate University, Louis L. Bucciarelli ,PhD, MIT
Anticipated Outcomes/ Broader Impacts:
Development of an undergraduate pre-professional, pre- engineering program based in liberal arts that is viewed as a valuable viable path into the profession.
Following the feasibility study, initiatives to implement LSE programs at selected colleges and universities. These programs could catalyze dramatic changes across the country that would bring engineering education into the 21st century.
Introduction:
Engineering education is changing. The Grand Challenges for Engineering and changing ABET accreditation guidelines require new thinking and new models for preparing youth for the profession. Traditional engineering education is too narrow, too limited in its scope, not sufficiently in tune with the demands placed upon the engineer of today. The rigid nature of course requirements severely constraints innovation and too narrow a vision of what an engineer is and what they do links directly to declining enrollments and failure to attract students with interests that go beyond building a better mousetrap. The existing constraints on educational innovation is one reason for looking to the other end of campus to establish a smoother pathway into engineering - a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies in Engineering (LSE). We believe that only a pre-professional program which is rooted in the liberal arts can provide a smooth and robust pathway into the profession for a wider spectrum of youth including more women and minorities.
Work to Date:
In January of 2015, a workshop hosted by the National Academy of Engineering and funded by NSF, the Teagle Foundation, Claremont Graduate University and MIT, was held in DC to kick off the project. Some 50 faculty from the Humanities, Arts and Engineering as well as from Engineering attended.  The workshop report is at A double issue of the journal Engineering Studies was devoted to a lead article by Bucciarelli and Drew, Liberal Studies in Engineering - A Design Plan followed by commentaries of some 30 participants in the workshop.
(figures from Module- Galileo and the Resistance Beams)
Modules are being developed that infuse engineering content into courses in the Liberal Arts. The first two, Science and the Courts and Galileo and the Resistance of Beams, have been posted online on edX Edge. Contact Professor Bucciarelli for instructions on how to access.
Study of current programs that provide alternate paths to the field or integrate liberal arts and engineering, such as, Cal Poly SLO and Dartmouth
Current Efforts:
Macalester College will hold a workshop "to explore new curricular pathways to serve students interested in engineering..." the end of May.  Liberal Studies in Engineering will be one option  The two faculty responsible for obtaining funds form the Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges (AALAC) to support the workshop are participants in the LSE project. As part of our feasibility study, an initial set of visits - Brown University, Wesleyan University, UMass. Lowell - has been completed. The aim was, and is, to understand what institutional policies and procedures must be in place, what resources must be available, what attitudes must prevail for an LSE program to have any chance of being installed, staffed, populated by students and sustained.
Methods:
Feasibility study of possibilities for, and barrier to, LSE programs- work to understand faculty and students’ view of what LSE should be and an organizations readiness to change
The feasibility study will include interviews with employers and graduate school admissions staff about how they would view graduates who had been through an LSE program
Understand and map current effort to integrate engineering and liberal studies
Work with Liberal Arts Colleges (3-2 Programs) to determine if LSE can provide a rejuvenated pathway that leads to engineering degrees at the graduate level
Develop a series of online, modular learning units that engineering in with course work in the Liberal Arts
Acknowledgments:
The feasibility study is being funded by NSF