5
Engineering Society Activities
In two sets of “lightning rounds” on the first day of the workshop, representatives of engineering societies presented brief descriptions of the activities of their organizations related to undergraduate engineering education. The first set of presentations focused largely on what societies do; the second focused largely on how societies do what they do, though some overlap with the previous presentations was inevitable.
WHAT SOCIETIES DO
Developing Partnerships for Innovation in Education
SME Certified Manufacturing Technologists (Kris Ward)
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Certified Manufacturing Technologists (CMfgT) certification benefits entry-level manufacturing technologists and experienced manufacturing engineers without other credentials. The end-of-program assessment is used in both two- and four-year programs in engineering technology, manufacturing technology, manufacturing engineering, and mechanical engineering.
The CMfgT is built on an industry-driven competency framework and on a body of knowledge that reflects the entry-level requirements for engi-
neering and manufacturing technologists. A number of optional resources are provided through the academic market to help students prepare for the assessment. The exam is not only an effective student evaluation but also a tool that provides insight into academic program performance. Individual and group reports allow instructors, deans, and department heads to assess student knowledge and identify gaps in curriculum against a standard body of knowledge. These measures help to continually improve the program so that graduating students meet industry-driven requirements.
The assessment supports ABET accreditation requirements, and students who pass the exam also get an industry credential that differentiates them to employers. The program’s continuing education requirement gives schools the opportunity to engage with students after graduation. The CMfgT offers an industry-driven alternative to the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam.
For more information visit www.sme.org/cmfgt.
SWE Collegiate Leadership Institute (Randi Rosebluth)
The objective of the Collegiate Leadership Institute (CLI) is to provide cutting-edge leadership and career development training for college and graduate students in technology and engineering. The school-year-long program accommodates 125 students and serves as an ongoing dynamic research platform for Society of Women Engineers (SWE) college leaders. In 2018 the CLI will expand to local conferences and a conference in India.
The CLI is modeled around pre- and postconference online learning. The institute includes a three-day live event, online engagement, webinars, mentors, individual coaching, a $150 stipend for transportation, and networking. Small groups are also offered career and professional coaching. The purpose of the program is to provide tools for the workplace, develop a leadership pipeline that enables women to take on roles in SWE within 5–15 years, and foster lifelong involvement with SWE.
For more information visit http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org.
ASME Faculty/Industry Standards Experts Teams (Bill Wepfer)
About 10 years ago the American Society of Mechanical Engineers established a task force in the spirit of the NAE Engineer of 2020 Initiative to determine how the mechanical engineering profession can make its curriculum relevant for students over the next 20 years. Department heads, hiring
managers, and industry leaders were surveyed to define the most pressing issues. Communication and understanding of codes and standards in undergraduate programs emerged as the strongest theme.
Three task forces were developed to embed standards in the undergraduate curriculum for design track/senior capstone design, mechanics of materials, and fluid mechanics. Each was led by both faculty experts and standards experts. Two primary questions that the task forces hope to address are how to embed codes and standards in a more positive context that facilitates problem solving and economic development, and how to recruit more talented and qualified faculty to help successfully run the program.
For more information visit https://www.asme.org/about-asme/standards/engineering-student-resources.
AIChE Manufacturing Institutes (Phil Westmoreland)
AIChE: The Global Home of Chemical Engineers is participating in a leadership position in two Manufacturing USA institutes, which are an initiative of the US Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy, to help foster a cross-disciplinary culture across engineering disciplines. Through its RAPID Manufacturing Institute, AIChE is working with key partners to increase efficiencies and lower capital costs through rapid advancement in process intensification deployment. The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute is working to spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of US advanced manufacturing. Faculty and student involvement is an important part of the institutes’ activities.
For more information visit https://www.aiche.org/rapid and https://www.cesmii.org.
Promoting Diversity
NSBE Student Retention Toolkit (Karl Reid)
Despite the high demand for engineers, only about one third of African Americans who start on the engineering track complete the program in six years. The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) recently announced a 2025 strategy to triple the number of African American engineers produced by colleges and universities. To fulfill that goal, NSBE is working with
colleges of engineering to increase the success rate of African American students. The program, with support from ExxonMobil, first recognized exemplar institutions that produce above-average numbers of underrepresented minority engineers. Through literature reviews and interviews about specific programs at these institutions, nine engagement strategies were identified in a white paper: institutional leadership, summer bridge programs, collaborative learning and living environments, early alert systems, facilitated study groups, faculty development, scholarships, self-efficacy, and positive identity development.
In partnership with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), this work led to the publication of the NSBE Student Retention Toolkit, available both in print and online, which operationalizes the engagement strategies. This 170-page document is part of NSBE’s comprehensive strategy to increase the success of underrepresented minorities in engineering education. The society plans to offer training (as part of preconference workshops) in ASEE and NSBE programs and grants as well as technical assistance to increase the capacity of colleges and universities to implement these strategies.
For more information visit www.nsbe.org.
Transforming Engineering Culture to Advance Inclusion and Diversity (Glenda La Rue)
Led by the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Purdue University, Transforming Engineering Culture to Advance Inclusion and Diversity (TECAID) is a three-year-long project involving five mechanical engineering departments across the country. The program aims to equip faculty teams of five with the tools needed to create and sustain inclusive department cultures for faculty, staff, and students.
TECAID is an intensive professional development curriculum based on the literature on inclusion, diversity, team building, team-based change leadership, and strategies and processes in academia. The program is run through virtual learning communities, four two-day workshops, subject matter expert consults, and department projects. Goals include academic change, climate and culture improvements, better department leadership policies and practices, and increases in collaboration. TECAID aims to provide faculty with both understanding and comfort with diversity and inclusion concepts, a way
to create and implement plans to address these concepts, and confidence and skills in change making.
Departments using the TECAID program have improved in all these areas, particularly through individual growth. Individuals in the program are starting to implement change, and these effects should ripple out to teams, departments, and institutions. TECAID will publish a training model to prepare engineering faculty to lead diversity, equity, and inclusion change.
For more information visit www.wskc.org/tecaid.
Fostering Interdisciplinary Engineering Education
Engineering Competency Model (Melissa Prelewicz)
The Engineering Competency Model, a joint initiative of the US Department of Labor and the American Association of Engineering Societies, serves as a guide for the development of professionals and the engineering workforce. Intended for educators, guidance counselors, and students, the model promotes understanding of the skills and competencies needed for a globally competitive workforce. It can inform educators in the development of a competency-based curriculum, assist guidance counselors in the development of resources for career exploration, and help students gain a clear understanding of the skills and abilities needed to not only enter but advance in an engineering profession.
The model uses a five-tier pyramid to depict the key competencies. The first level is personal effectiveness, including interpersonal skills, integrity, and interest in lifelong learning. Tier two, academic excellence, involves communication and writing skills along with science and technology skills. Tier three, workplace skills, focuses on teamwork, creative thinking, and business fundamentals. Tier four is industrywide technical competencies; it concerns not only the fundamentals of engineering but also areas such as professional ethics. Tier five is an opportunity to include discipline-specific competencies, which several societies are developing. A two-minute video, a PowerPoint presentation with a speaker’s guide, and a handout are available for faculty, guidance counselors, and others who work with individuals who are entering and working in STEM professions.
For more information visit www.aaes.org/model.
Engineers Without Borders–USA Global Classroom (Libby Jones)
The overarching goal of the Engineers Without Borders–USA Global Classroom program is to provide training for members and volunteers that will enable them to work successfully with community partners in America and around the world. The program aims to provide an understanding of the skills and tools needed for development and humanitarian engineering and to prepare the participants to apply these skills and tools in the service of small rural farms in Costa Rica under the supervision of experienced engineers. Costa Rica is the global frontrunner in sustainable development and offers unmatched opportunities to observe sustainable best practices in action. By the end of the course, students produce a successful model of project management, from planning to implementation to monitoring and evaluation.
The curriculum is being improved using assessment feedback from the approximately 50 participants, instructors, and farmers. This input helps guide the development of online modules that can reach a larger population of about 5,000 people.
For more information visit www.ewb-usa.org.
Raising Awareness of Engineering Disciplines
ASM Materials Camps (Nichol Campana)
The ASM Materials Education Foundation, the philanthropic division of ASM International, aims to guide young people into materials science and engineering careers to help create a skilled STEM workforce. The foundation’s signature program is its Materials Camps for teachers and students. Teachers’ camps are week-long, hands-on laboratory experiences that show educators how to use applied engineering techniques in their classrooms. They include an idea-generating workshop introducing teachers to methods that make mathematics and core science principles more appealing and relevant to middle and high school students. Student camps are for high school students with strong abilities in mathematics and science who have completed their sophomore and junior years. Eighty-six percent of student camp participants enroll in science and engineering programs in college.
The more than 70 camps are held at universities and other institutions across the United States as well as in Canada, France, India, and Brazil. Undergraduate students are encouraged to get involved as volunteer mentors, team leaders, laboratory assistants, and occasionally organizers of the
camps. The five-day camps can be residential, commuter, or minicamps, and many are held in conjunction with other ASM events.
For more information visit www.asminternational.org/foundation/teachers/teacher-material-camps.
ANS Annual Student Conference (Bob Fine)
American Nuclear Society (ANS) members under the age of 35 are the fastest growing segment of the society’s membership. The society has student sections at 52 universities across the country, and about 14 percent of its members are students.
Every year a student section hosts a student conference, representing one of a variety of activities offered to student members. Students plan and organize an educational meeting, conduct sessions, present research findings, hear talks by nonstudents on topics of interest (such as public policy issues), and network, including with recruiters. Participants also include professors, professionals, and job recruiters.
In addition to the annual conference, faculty and guest speakers attend monthly or bimonthly events at these universities.
For more information visit www.ans.org.
SAE Collegiate Design Series (Chris Ciuca)
The SAE Collegiate Design Series aims to facilitate connections between industry and education by providing experiential learning for students. Approximately 120,000 students from pre-K to college age—including 10,000 undergraduate students—participate in SAE STEM programs each year through integrated educational design challenges. The series includes Baja SAE, Formula SAE, SAE Aero Design, SAE Clean Snowmobile, SAE Supermileage, and the new AutoDrive Challenge. Participating students meet and take on the roles of a range of experts in the field, from engineers to business developers and marketing and finance professionals. The series aims to create an environment that prepares students for a career through a university-simulated business-like setting.
SAE’s collegiate programming engages teams from all of the top US engineering degree–granting universities (as ranked by ASEE’s Profiles of Engineering and Technology Degree Colleges), with many participating in multiple SAE Collegiate Design Series competitions.
For more information visit http://students.sae.org/cds/.
HOW SOCIETIES DO WHAT THEY DO: ISSUES, PROBLEMS, AND BARRIERS FACED AND OVERCOME
Establishing Effective Inter-Society Collaborations
The 50K Coalition (Constance Thompson)
The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) have formed a coalition with one major goal: to graduate 50,000 female, Black, Hispanic, and Native American engineers by the year 2025. Led by the 50K Coalition Leadership Circle, the project has 43 member organizations representing engineering professional societies and schools of engineering that share this focus. The United Engineering Foundation and National Science Foundation have provided half a million dollars in funding.
The coalition uses a collective impact approach, with a common agenda, project plans, and defined metrics. The agenda has six elements: undergraduate support and retention, public awareness and marketing, K–12 support, community college linkages, culture and climate, and funding and financial support. Each organization contributes a project plan that includes an agreed upon matrix and measurable agenda items to serve as its commitment to reaching the goal.
For more information visit http://50kcoalition.org.
Material Advantage Student Program (Bill Mahoney)
The Material Advantage Student Program was created for undergraduate and graduate students in materials science, engineering, and other technical engineering programs at universities around the world. It is operated by the American Ceramic Society, Association for Iron and Steel Technology, Materials Information Society, and Minerals, Metals and Materials Society. Each organization shares expenses and revenue, operates programs and procedures on behalf of Material Advantage, and may maintain both Material Advantage–branded programs and their own society programs.
The $30 US membership fee provides full access to all four societies. Students can use their membership to enhance their personal development and to build a career foundation with long-term benefits.
A number of events are executed on behalf of the Material Advantage Program. The culminating event, the Material Science and Technology Conference held every year in the fall, exposes students to a large number of networking, learning, and collaborative opportunities as well as various contests and awards.
For more information visit http://materialadvantage.org.
Bolstering Society-University Collaboration
Tooling U-SME and E-learning (Kris Ward)
Tooling U-SME is the workforce development division of SME that connects the local education community, employers, and workforce groups to provide jobs for students and meet employer/workforce needs. The program identifies specific market conditions in order to analyze needs, design a complete program, create a detailed implementation plan, and do follow-through with evaluation and support to ensure the best results and outcomes. It uses flipped classrooms to enable instructors to spend more time on applied and hands-on learning and skill building. It is incorporated in universities, community colleges, and high school bridge programs that award college credit.
Tooling U-SME brings industry-driven e-learning content to higher education that is mapped to the needs of industry competencies, apprenticeship programs, and certifications. Students that use Tooling U-SME classes as part of their education program can port their Tooling U-SME transcript to employers, who can decide the level of credit to provide. This saves the employer significant time and resources when onboarding these new hires, increasing the value provided by the college or university. Using industry-driven resources and creating a connected education-employer community also can help institutions of higher education track placement rates and monitor student postgraduate success.
For more information visit www.toolingu.com.
ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (Leslie Nolan)
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshops aim to improve the teaching skills of civil engineering faculty. Participants learn what constitutes effective teaching and how to apply learning style models to the organization and
conduct of a class, use classroom assessment techniques to assess student learning, organize a class, deliver classroom instruction, assess a class from a student’s perspective, and self-assess their classes. Member volunteers develop and refine the workshop curriculum. The six-day hands-on workshop provides seminars, demonstration classes by master teachers, and the opportunity for participants to teach a class and receive feedback from mentors and assistant mentors.
To ensure that the curriculum stays current, the ASCE Department Heads Coordinating Council listens to input from department heads on the needs of their faculty. Workshop faculty are recruited from previous participants, first as assistant mentors and then as full mentors. A mentor and an assistant mentor are provided for every four participants in the workshop, and they give personalized feedback to participants throughout the event. Since 1999 more than 800 people have participated in the workshops, and a number of graduates have gone on to win accolades at their school and in nationwide contests.
For more information visit www.asce.org/exceed.
ASME Graduate Teaching Fellows (Aisha Lawrey)
The Graduate Teaching Fellowship Program is a collaboration between the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and US mechanical engineering departments to support and encourage outstanding doctoral candidates—particularly women and underrepresented minorities—in mechanical engineering education and related engineering fields. Fellowship awards of $5,000 a year are given for a maximum of two years. Fellows are selected (or renewed) annually by the ASME Board on Education. Applicants must be PhD students in mechanical engineering with a demonstrated interest in an academic career. Fellows are required to teach at least one lecture course.
The program aims to inspire the next generation of mechanical engineering faculty members through society and university collaboration. There have been 58 fellows since 1992, 80 percent of whom are now in academic careers and 51 percent of whom are women. ASME plans to continue to grow the program to increase faculty diversity nationwide.
For more information visit https://www.asme.org/career-education/scholarships-and-grants/scholarship-and-loans/graduate-teaching-fellowships.
AIChE Process-Safety Modules (Phil Westmoreland)
Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) Process-Safety Modules aim to establish and support manufacturing safety. Developed through the AIChE Academy to meet ABET safety expectations through industry leadership, three major levels of online modules define the program. The first, introduced early in a student’s education, addresses the importance of process safety, hazard recognition, identification and minimization of process safety hazards, and management of process safety hazards. The second level focuses on core undergraduate modules: understanding hazards and risks, processing safety at a personal level, managing hazards and risk, and assessing hazards. The third level involves advanced or elective modules, including those for industry use; topics include safe design and operation, equipment hazards, quantitative methods and hazard assessment, risk-based process safety management, and materials hazards. New modules are being developed with the goal of ensuring that all graduating bachelor-degree chemical engineers anywhere in the world are knowledgeable about process safety.
For more information visit http://sache.org/.
IEEE Standards Simulation Workshops (Larry Larson)
In 2015 and 2016 Texas State University partnered with the IEEE Standards Education Program to design a one-day workshop demonstrating technical standards development. The interactive workshop includes short introductory lectures and case studies, presented by technical experts and leading standards developers from industry, and a table-top working group simulation to reach consensus on “standards” related to communication, transportation, and power. In the second half of the workshop, each participant is assigned a role modeled on real-life motivations of those participating in standards development.
The workshops are now available as a licensed box game with player materials, videos, and an instructional manual, for use without a professional facilitator. Texas State and IEEE are developing a version of the workshop that can be integrated into coursework as a module rather than as a full-day event and that can be mapped to ABET evaluation criteria.
For more information visit www.ieee.org.
Using Societies to Facilitate Academia-Industry Alignment
ASME Vision 2030 (Bill Wepfer)
ASME’s Vision 2030 project (V2030) aims to (1) define the knowledge and skills that mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering technology graduates should have to be globally competitive, and (2) advocate for the adoption of recommendations for mechanical engineering curricula with the goal of better preparing graduates to meet the demands of a changing professional environment. To that end the project analyzed the perspectives of over 1,400 engineering managers in industry, more than 1,100 recent mechanical engineering graduates, and mechanical engineering education leaders from 80 universities on how mechanical engineers should be educated to meet the current and future demands of a transforming profession.
Several aspects of the educational landscape emerged as target areas for change, encompassing a range of educational pathways to accommodate the increasingly diverse practice of mechanical engineering. Target areas include richer practice-based experience, stronger professional skills, more flexible curricula, greater innovation and creativity, technical depth specialization, and a new balance of faculty skills. Flexible curricula are especially important in creating a student-elective array of mechanical/multidisciplinary options in programs for majors or minors.
The project also resulted in changes to the ABET mechanical engineering program criteria to support more flexibility and greater emphasis on design through product realization requirements. The program emphasizes “design-make-innovate-create” with a strong element of professional skill development. Nearly half of the departments surveyed have used V2030 to leverage curriculum change and resource acquisition.
For more information visit https://community.asme.org/board_education/w/wiki/7883.asme-vision-2030-project.aspx.
AIChE Chemical Engineering Academia-Industry Alignment (Jim Hill)
The AIChE report Chemical Engineering Academia-Industry Alignment: Expectations about New Graduates (2015) lays out five objectives: (1) obtain opinions on the preparation of undergraduates and PhD graduates for the jobs they take; (2) determine whether graduates need more workplace preparation, and if so in what areas; (3) assess a number of subject areas in terms of career importance, level of academic preparedness, and the need for more
academic preparation; (4) identify areas of growing career opportunities for chemical engineering graduates; and (5) evaluate the need for practical and/or intern experience for chemical engineering undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. In addition, the study assesses a possibly problematic shift in faculty expertise away from core areas of chemical engineering.
Key messages of the report include the importance of theory and fundamentals based on physical understanding; broadening of topics (not all with equal depth); instillation of classical knowledge and critical thinking; and development of communication skills, teamwork/leadership skills, and open-ended problem solving. Key conclusions were that there has been a shift in faculty research interests in current chemical engineering programs; practical experience in chemical engineering is valued yet few institutions require it; and academic institutions do not feel there is as much need for workplace preparation as do those in industry. However, the study also suggested that chemical engineering education is more aligned with industry needs than hypothesized.
The study is available at https://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/docs/conferences/2015che_academicindustryalignmentstudy.compressed.pdf.
Societies and Informal Learning1
EWB-USA Project-Based Learning through an International Community Program (Cathy Leslie)
An important part of the Engineers Without Borders (EWB)–USA mission is to provide education and training for the next generation of engineers. The International Community Program creates long-term relationships (typically five years) between student chapters and underserved communities in other countries. These partnerships assess, design, construct, and monitor two or three types of infrastructure projects. Under the guidance of a professional mentor, members develop and use skills in project management and design as well as leadership, communication, time management, persuasion, negotiation, and fund raising.
Students must determine what materials are locally available and what a community can afford now and in the future. They assess and create alternatives, design, raise funds for travel and construction, arrange for the delivery
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1 The presentation on IISE Certificate Training listed in the workshop agenda was not given as the speaker was unable to attend.
of materials, construct, train for operations and maintenance, and monitor and evaluate.
Many of the benefits of participation have been documented through qualitative feedback from graduated students and corporate partners as well as a broad ongoing study sponsored by NSF. The study indicates that EWB participants demonstrate higher than average professional skills from their experience leading teams, managing projects, and working in cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary environments. These skills make them coveted recruits at the world’s premier engineering firms and enhance the image and marketability of the universities that host approximately 150 EWB-USA chapters.
For more information visit www.ewb-usa.org.
SAMPE Bridge Contest (Karin Anderson)
The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) is a worldwide technical society with both professional and student members from academia, government, and industry. Because members work in all areas of material and process development, serving their needs and interests can be challenging. The SAMPE Bridge Contest was launched 20 years ago to address this issue.
Student members are asked to design, analyze, fabricate, and test two-foot-long bridges made of advanced materials and processes. They frequently use engineering software that is standard in the industry, and are asked to present their data in a style similar to presentations in their future careers. They often receive credit for the project through a professor, a senior project, or a course. Industry sponsors are given the opportunity to showcase their materials to prospective engineers through the donation of materials and monetary awards for students. Many of the students also meet with industries in their local communities and ask companies to help them build their bridges, thereby fostering collaboration and student learning.
The contest is held throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China, and Japan. The winners meet and compete globally, developing both cultural and engineering experience, and new technology categories are continually integrated into the program.
For more student program information visit www.nasampe.org/page/students.
