2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The University of Michigan, College of Engineering has implemented two elective, bookend courses that introduce undergraduate students to engineering leadership competencies, provide opportunities to intentionally seek development of these competencies, and guide students to integrate growth in these competencies into future experiences.

Engineering 110: Design Your Engineering Experience, an elective course for first-year engineering students, exposes students to the competencies within the context of defining engineering as a field, guides students through identifying opportunities available within Michigan Engineering, and aims to develop self-authorship [1], [2]. The competencies provide a framework for intentionally exploring learning opportunities available at the University of Michigan as students create a plan for their future educational experiences. Engineering 499: Design Your Engineering Future, an elective course for senior-level engineering students, helps students leverage their experiences through reflective observation [3] to better understand and explain their leadership development. These reflections occur through meetings with professional engineers who serve as mentors, as well as through storytelling activities in class that enable students to articulate both their technical and professional skills [4]. Through both courses, students are exposed to a competency-based approach to leadership development that will prepare them to identify and develop competencies deemed necessary in future careers [5].

The competencies were developed by the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan through a strategic vision process involving faculty, staff, students, alumni, and industry professionals as well as from national sources including the National Academy of Engineering [6] and the American Society for Engineering Education [7]. Existing alignment with Seemiller’s taxonomy of leadership competency development provides a foundation for leveraging these competencies to create curriculum and measure student leadership learning and development [5].

Upon completion of either course, students should be able to identify and communicate the value of specific leadership competencies necessary for success in an engineering career. This practice paper will provide information regarding the design of these two courses and will include results from a survey and focus groups conducted with students who enrolled in one, both or neither course.

References:

[1] R. Kegan, “In Over Our Heads, The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 92, 1996.

[2] M. Baxter Magolda and P. King (eds.), “Learning Partnerships: Theory and Models of Practice to Educate for Self-Authorship. Sterling, Va.: Stylus, 2004.

[3] Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experiences as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall.

[4] Callewaert, J. H., & Millunchick, J. M., & Woodcock, C. S. E., & Jiang, K. C., & Edington, S. (2020, June), Developing a Framework for Experiential Learning Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34414

[5] Seemiller, C. (2013). The Student Leadership Competencies Guidebook: Designing Intentional Leadership Learning and Development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

[6] National Academy of Engineering. Engineering the Future 2018.
https://www.nae.edu/215419/NAE-Annual-Report-2018 Accessed on March 1, 2021.

[7] American Society for Engineering Education, “Transforming Undergraduate Education in Engineering,” 2013.