Enabling the U.S. engineering workforce to perform: Building a culture for technological innovation and leadership in professional graduate engineering education

Abstract

This is the fourth paper in the special panel session of the National Collaborative Task Force on Engineering Graduate Education Reform to ensure a strong U.S. engineering workforce for competitiveness. Whereas research cultures have been built into the nation's schools of engineering to enhance the educational experience of research-oriented graduate students, it is now evident that a complementary but different culture is needed also to make professionally oriented engineering graduate education more relevant to the needs of industry and to further the advanced professional education of the majority of the nation's engineers who are pursuing creative engineering practice for leadership of technology development and innovation in industry. The paper explores the type of organizational culture and attributes that must be built into high-quality professional graduate engineering education to facilitate systematic technological innovation, improve industry-university engagement for innovation, and enable the continuous positive growth of creative working professionals in industry for leadership of engineering innovation.