2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

CIP 2030: A Strategy for Engineering Management to be Reclassified as an Engineering Discipline

Presented at Engineering Economy Division (EED) Technical Session

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) started the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) in 1980 to facilitate the organization, collection, and reporting of fields of study and program completions. Engineering management was moved in 2000 from CIP 14 (Engineering) to CIP 15 (Engineering/Engineering-related Technologies/Technicians). In so doing, the federal government changed engineering management from an Engineering field of study to an Engineering Technology field.

The fact that this change occurred in 2000 is well documented in the NCES archives. What is not available is why the change was made. As previously discussed by Asgarpoor and Lewis (2022), there are several important reasons that the engineering management community should attempt to reverse this change. This paper explores a strategy for how to request and influence a return to CIP 14.

NCES updates the CIP codes every 10 years in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). In 2020 NCES used several tools for updating the CIP list, including
• A scan of institutional websites
• Review of ‘Other’ titles that do not currently fit into existing codes
• A survey of IPEDS keyholders.
• Meetings of their Technical Review Panel
• Public response to their Federal Register Notice

Every institution of higher education has a university-designated IPEDS Keyholder. The engineering management academic community can influence NCES through their IPEDS Keyholders, who supply updated information annually. A key part of our recommended strategy is to have a unified story to give to our Keyholders for passing on to NCES. As a community, we can also influence the members of the Technical Review Panel and make responses to Federal Register notices. The process will likely take several years; the next planned CIP update is 2030. The time to start is now.

We outline a recommended strategy where universities work in concert to deliver specific reasons and recommendations, including:
• Why engineering management belongs in CIP 14 (Engineering)
• Maintaining our STEM designation
• The fact that EM is already considered Engineering by ABET and other organizations
We recommend the return of engineering management to CIP 14.3001, which was the pre-2000 CIP code, and which is still available for our use. This paper will report result of activities targeted at learning more about the role that IPEDS keyholders and Technical Review Panels play in the CIP code system. We will identify, contact, and interview such individuals and learn about the intricacies of the process that can help to reclaim CIP 14.3001 for Engineering Management discipline.

Authors

Dr. Neal A Lewis University of Nebraska - Lincoln [biography]

NEAL A. LEWIS, CPEM, received his Ph.D. in engineering management in 2004 and B.S. in chemical engineering in 1974 from the University of Missouri–Rolla and his MBA in 2000 from the University of New Haven. He has over 25 years of industrial experience at Procter & Gamble and Bayer. He is a full time faculty member of the online Master of Engineering Management program at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Previously, he taught at UMR, Marshall University, University of Bridgeport, University of New Haven, Fairfield University, and Oregon State University. He has over 100 publications and presentations, including 3 books, 6 best paper awards at conferences, the 2009 Grant award (TEE), and the 2005 Eschenbach award (EMJ). Neal is a Fellow of ASEM.
Dr. Jena Shafai Asgarpoor University of Nebraska - Lincoln [biography]

Dr. Jena Asgarpoor is a Professor of Practice at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and the Director for the Master of Engineering Management Program in the College of Engineering. She received her Ph. D. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering, specializing in Engineering Management, from Texas A and M University in College Station where she had previously earned a B.A. in Political Science (Summa Cum Laude). Prior to UNL, she was a professor at Bellevue University for 26 years, where in 1994 as part of her teaching portfolio she developed and taught the first fully online asynchronous web-based course offered by that institution. Her interests lie in engineering management, quality management, pedagogy, and assessment of teaching and learning, particularly in the online space. She is active in the American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). In recent years she has served as Secretary, President, and Past-President of the Council of Engineering Management Academic Leaders (CEMAL), as a LEAD officer, and is currently serving as Program Chair for the Engineering Management Division (EMD) of ASEE. Dr. Asgarpoor is the 2022-2023 Secretary for the American Society for Engineering Management. Her interests lie in scholarship of teaching and learning specifically in asynchronous online space, assessment of learning, engineering management, and quality management.
Ipek Bozkurt University of Houston - Clear Lake

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