Integration of sustainability in a multidisciplinary engineering department

Abstract

As a small department with two unique engineering programs, we face challenges in offering programs efficiently and in introducing new topics of importance in engineering. Our solution has been to take a multidisciplinary approach to each program and to new topics. We also embrace multidisciplinarity as a goal in itself. We stress to students that they are engineers first, with a disciplinary specialty as a second consideration. Some engineering jobs require a specific disciplinary or subdisciplinary focus, but many other engineering jobs require broadly educated engineers; we seek to prepare our students for those broader jobs. One approach we have taken to promoting multidisciplinarity is through the integration of the topic of sustainability into our programs. Sustainability involves products, processes, and practices that meet the needs of current generations while preserving the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The topic is relevant to and requires the use of many engineering disciplines. It also requires the integration of engineering knowledge with knowledge of other disciplines outside engineering. Our programs present students with topics in sustainability throughout the curriculum, so the students start with awareness and move to knowledge and application. In this paper, we present examples of how we move students to these different levels in each year of the program using activities in many courses, from introduction to engineering through the senior design project. We conclude with our recommendation that other engineering programs that want to increase multidisciplinarity should consider the framework of sustainability as a way to move toward that goal. The topic of sustainability can move an engineering program toward increased integration of engineering disciplines as well as toward increased integration of engineering with other fields. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2014.