Boeing-University Relations - A Review and Prospects for the Future

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current state of affairs in relations between academe and industry in general, and ourobservations and opinions are offered in this context. Despite any differences in opinion, theauthors remain friends and share a mutual passion for enhancing engineering education.Industry PerspectiveConcerns about the future of engineering education were identified by many in the late 1980’sand early 1990’s. Many of the more pointed concerns expressed at that time related toundergraduate rather than graduate-level engineering education. These concerns are to somedegree still active and include:• Our future supply of engineering talent is threatened. Current engineering educationprograms are failing to attract and retain an adequate number of students, especially womenand minorities. Undergraduate programs still resemble “preparation for a Ph.D. program”rather than “preparation for professional practice”. Large majorities of existing facultymembers have little or no significant industry experience, and thus have little understandingof rapidly evolving employer needs.• Engineering education costs a lot for what we get. Costs are rising alarmingly, whileundergraduates are not getting full value for their money. Too many are turned off by whatis offered. Employers continue to pay the full (often hidden) bill for teaching graduateswhat they need to know, but are not taught in school. There is a potential major savings forindustry in investing early in the educational process, rather than paying the bill later.• Major opportunities for reform exist but remain to be exploited. Significant advances havebeen made in our knowledge of how people learn and develop, while new teaching methodsand curricular organization have been demonstrated 1, 2 , but have not been widely accepted.Too little has changed in undergraduate engineering education delivery in the past 50 years.Much thought has been devoted in both industry and academe to the future of our enterprise andthe technical workforce needed to support it 3 . However, predicting an unknowable, but likelycontinually volatile future presents many problems. In such situations it is sometimes valuable toexamine current events and concerns in terms of much longer historical time scales. In this wayone may attempt to discern basic trends and durable characteristics that might provide usefulguidance for our future, and avoid the dangers of extrapolating from a possible bubble or troughin any evolutionary process. With this longer-term perspective in hand, one then may examinewhat new developments might occur which could produce changes in the ‘old way of doingbusiness’. The futurist’s role is thus to examine “what could happen (if wanted and nounknowable events intervene)” rather than attempt to predict the future.One successful example of this approach was its use in the construction circa 1993-94 of theBoeing list 4,5 of “Desired Attributes of an Engineer” (Fig. 1). The original purpose in creatingthis list was to establish a basis for an on-going dialogue with academe at a time when muchlegitimate criticism was leveled at various potential employers for a seeming propensity for“changing their minds all the time” and sending often contradictory messages to schoolsregarding “what industry needs”. Rather than provide schools with continually changing lists ofProceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & ExpositionCopyright ASEE 2005, American Society for Engineering Education.
“near-term expected jobs”, what seemed needed was an enumeration of the durable foundationalskills and knowledge that all engineers have always needed to posses, based on experience inprofessional practice over the long-term (i.e. centuries). To be useful, such a listing shouldcontain no “flavors of the month” - no matter how apparently worthy at any given time. Thehope was that our list could thus be used as a basis for discussing systemic changes inengineering education programs required to better align them with truly strategic employerneeds, i.e. teaching these fundamentals should stand any student in good stead, no matter howthe world might change in the future.Boeing List of “Desired Attributes of an Engineer”• A good understanding ofengineering sciencefundamentals– Mathematics (including statistics)– Physical and life sciences– Information technology (far more than“computer literacy”)• A good understanding of designand manufacturing processes (i.e.understands engineering)• A multi-disciplinary, systemsperspective• A basic understanding of thecontext in which engineering ispracticed– Economics (including businesspractice)– History– The environment– Customer and societal needs• Good communication skills– Written– Oral– Graphic– Listening• High ethical standards• An ability to think both criticallyand creatively - independentlyand cooperatively• Flexibility. The ability and selfconfidenceto adapt to rapid ormajor change• Curiosity and a desire to learn forlife• A profound understanding of theimportance of teamwork.Diversity – wanted and needed !http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/pwu/attributes/attributes.htmlFigure 1: Desired Attributes of an Engineer.The list that was constructed in this way has served us well for the past decade and was one ofthree basic source documents used in framing the “Student Learning Outcomes” section inABET Engineering Criteria 2000 approved in 1996. New ABET EC 2000 accreditation rulesencourage rather than hinder educational experimentation 2 , although many schools have yet tofully realize and exploit these opportunities. In general, it has not been found necessary tochange anything on the list over the decade since it was first published, and much constructivedialogue has been generated by it. It thus remains our basic message to academe regarding whatindustry needs of their graduates. If one were to modify it today, the one item that is probablynecessary to add is: “Possess a global awareness”. Knowledge of a foreign language is one goodbeginning point in creating a needed multi-cultural perspective among future graduates.Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & ExpositionCopyright ASEE 2005, American Society for Engineering Education.
Page 1: Boeing-University Relations - A Rev
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Page 19: BIOGRAPHIESDr. John H. McMasters jo

Boeing-University Relations - A Review and Prospects for the Future

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