Enabling the U.S. engineering workforce to perform: Building organizational sustainability for innovation in professional graduate engineering education

Abstract

This is the second paper in the panel session of the National Collaborative Task Force for reform of professionally oriented engineering graduate education to make it more relevant to the needs of industry and to ensure a strong U.S. engineering workforce for competitiveness. The mission, purpose, methods, motivations, talents, and experience of engineering professionals who conceptualize, design, develop, innovate, and lead the purposeful development of new and improved technology are quite different from those of the academic scientific researcher. It is now evident that innovative professional graduate education programs do not fit organizationally into traditional disciplinary research-oriented academic departments. This paper focuses on new types of innovative organizations that are required to initiate, develop, and sustain high-quality professional graduate education at 21 st century universities in collaboration with industry. This paper begins the exploration of new types of innovative learning organizations that must be implemented into the mainstream of university operations. These organizations must foster a collaborative engineering culture for technological creativity, innovation, and technological leadership that enable the continuous growth of working professionals through all levels of engineering responsibility in industry.