2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In 1996, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) adopted Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000). EC2000 was revolutionary for its time and its implications for engineering education paradigms rocked engineering programs around the United States. Communication in engineering continues to be an important element of engineering education, especially in terms of future employability. Universities are continually measured, ranked, and evaluated for performance-based funding based on their students’ employment numbers following graduation. However, a divide exists between the level of communication competency employers expect from recent graduates versus their actual competency. Despite over two decades of Communication (and English) faculty efforts, extensive research, and grant investment by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in engineering communication education since EC2000, the calls for universities to teach communication competence to engineering undergraduates has only grown louder.

At its core, communication is a process of shared meaning making that relies on the relationships between communicators. In this paper, we discuss how communication as a theoretically and empirically rich discipline has been largely bypassed in favor of pursuing teaching engineering students how to develop technically sound written messages and visually appealing presentations. As a result, the calls for improved communication competence among new engineering graduates has become more persistent as engineering students continue to enter the workforce without the myriad communication competencies employers are seeking. We argue that including interpersonal communication training, including teamwork, collaboration, intercultural competence, and audience centered communication will afford students with the competencies necessary to navigate the challenges faced by 21st Century engineers.

The authors’ experiences teaching interpersonal communication in technical engineering courses offers a roadmap for how professional communication instruction can be effectively implemented even in large-section engineering courses to further discussions around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Furthermore, the authors’ research and experiences working in and developing integrated communication programs in engineering and other STEM fields provides three unique cross-disciplinary case studies at three different institutions that offer clear and transferrable recommendations for how communication instruction can be collaboratively integrated into engineering programs to attend to justice and equity. In short, interpersonal communication instruction presents an expanded understanding of communication competence, as well as how communication training can inform and transform undergraduate engineering education and professional practice.

Finally, we contend that the goals and impacts of cross-disciplinary communication instruction extend beyond preparing undergraduate students for professional success, and that a cross-disciplinary approach can provide an avenue for the integration of a broad education that prepares students for global citizenship and civic engagement. In short, we outline the ability of communication to strengthen engineering education and to help meet the growing calls within engineering for civic engagement, diversity, equity, inclusion, and social and environmental justice.