Defining a Curriculum for Service Sector Engineering

Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI

Investigators

Abstract

This is a planning grant for department level reform for the Department of Industrial Engineering at Michigan Technological University. In this project, a team of faculty will conduct a Delphi Study to reach consensus on the curricular requirements for a new discipline-Service Sector Engineering. The Delphi technique was first developed in the business world as a forecasting and consensus-building method and has been subsequently adapted to several curriculum development projects. Results from this Delphi Study will be presented at future annual conferences of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and ASME. Results will also be used to develop a full-scale implementation proposal to a future Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education solicitation. Through this project to design an engineering curriculum that will serve the current needs of the U.S. economy more effectively than many of the traditional disciplines. This new curriculum will likely be broadly interdisciplinary, incorporating subject matter from several fields both inside and outside of engineering. Several studies have shown that groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering, particularly women, are attracted to careers which have an emphasis on serving society. For this reason, the development of a Service Sector Engineering discipline will likely improve our ability to attract a diverse group of learners to engineering studies.