Teaching leadership principles to undergraduate engineering and technology students

Abstract

In response to our college dean's initiative to enhance students' understanding of leadership principles, a new course has been developed. The new course is titled, "Moral Leadership in a Technological World." The course satisfies general education credit in the areas of Social Science and Global and Cultural Awareness, is taught by college of Engineering and Technology faculty, and is open to all university students. In addition, the course satisfies specific discipline accreditation requirements in the area of ethics. Students that have taken the course have found that the material taught and class projects have been valuable in increasing their awareness in what it means to be a leader and how to lead. Typically, in their last leadership assignment in the course, the development of a personal leadership theory, they express a willingness to commit to be a leader in the future in both their personal and professional lives. Our world is richly blessed by technological and engineering advancements, but it is also greatly challenged by the misuse of the same. As technical professionals in our respective disciplines, we have a responsibility to be more than just "commodity" engineers and technologists. We are to provide leadership in solving vexing social, moral and spiritual challenges in this highly connected and complex world. The challenge of leadership has been given and our task is to take it to heart. It is to learn what leadership means and do it. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.