The global engineering college: Exploring a new model for engineering education in a global economy

Abstract

The increasing globalization of corporate economies has changed the face of engineering practice. In addition to core engineering skills, modern engineers must possess cross-cultural communication skills, team management skills, and the ability to perform on geographically distributed teams. We describe a novel auricular paradigm called the Global Engineering College (GEC) that we are currently exploring under an NSF planning grant. The GEC concept is based on the idea of seamlessly combining the curricula and educational opportunities of several internationally-distributed engineering institutions to create a virtual engineering college spanning multiple countries and cultures. We report on the technical, pedagogic, and administrative challenges we have exposed in our exploration of the GEC concept, and on our approach to addressing them.