A Workshop Promoting Introduction to Engineering at Liberal Arts Colleges

Hope College, Holland MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will conduct a workshop to give faculty from liberal arts colleges the tools they need to offer an introductory course in engineering. Exposing students at liberal arts colleges to engineering will expand a little used path into the engineering profession with the potential to increase the gender and racial diversity of the field. The workshop will teach faculty from science departments at liberal arts colleges to offer an introduction to engineering course and provide them with the curriculum and supplies necessary to get started. Liberal arts faculty have already expressed a desire to increase the exposure of liberal arts students to engineering as a career option. Liberal arts colleges have long supplied capable and well-qualified entrants into professions such as law, business, and medicine. The career path of a liberal arts bachelor's degree in science combined with a graduate engineering degree represents a highly achievable route to the benefits of an engineering career for liberal arts students and provides the engineering profession with a potential infusion of individuals from the gender and ethnic diversity contained in liberal arts institutions. The lack of gender and ethnic diversity in engineering merits aggressive exploration of other viable paths into the profession. Professions such as law, business, and medicine are more diverse than engineering, possibly due in part to the greater number of pathways into the profession. Liberal arts students pursue careers in law, business, and medicine but seldom engineering. Engineering has benefited little from the talent pool represented by liberal arts schools in part because the usual path into engineering demands an early commitment on the part of the student to pursue engineering. However, students who complete an undergraduate major in science or mathematics are able to pursue graduate degrees in engineering by completing necessary prerequisites as part of a master's degree program. This proposal will pilot test a design-based introduction to engineering course that can be taught by science faculty and that will be suitable for liberal arts students. This course will help students to become aware of the option of the liberal arts science major combined with a graduate engineering degree. This engineering career path could be a viable replacement for the largely disused 3-2 liberal arts and engineering dual degree programs.