2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Building stronger faculty-industry engagement for enriched applied engineering education

The continuous and constant engagement between industry and faculty is important for faculty to understand current best practices in the industry and the need to develop new practical tools married with emerging theories and concepts. Industry engagement facilitates the design of proofing grounds for new models and solutions. This knowledge can be brought back to the classroom to enrich students with practical skills and abilities to be successful in their future careers. Traditional industry-university collaborations in Engineering have focused on collaborating on capstone projects or large research and development collaborations to design and develop new products and processes. However, there is a need in the industry community for engineering and engineering technology programs to support and assist them with applying proven modern, proven, and emerging techniques and technologies to their day-to-day practices. Some industry expectations do not always align with the preferred outcomes that facilitate faculty's professional growth and success. Information from faculty was gathered to explore factors that support or hinder faculty engagement with the industry and recommend strategies for bridging potential gaps in their collaboration. In this paper, we share the results from the faculty's comments. Faculty responses varied in how they understood and experienced collaborations with industry. Faculty also identified barriers to establishing healthy partnerships with industry. Findings suggest several beneficial outcomes for faculty, industry partners, students, and other university stakeholders. Our paper positions the faculty focus from a career well-being standpoint as a potential way to enhance faculty interest and motivation in developing and managing long-term sustainable partnerships with industry partners, especially small-and-medium-sized enterprises.

Authors

Meera Alagaraja Texas A&M University
Dr. Jieun Yi Texas A&M University
Dr. Malini Natarajarathinam http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1684-6476 Texas A&M University [biography]

Dr. Malini Natarajarathinam is a Professor in the Industrial Distribution (ID) program in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution (ETID) in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in purchasing, distribution logistics, strategic relationships, distribution customer experience, etc.
She has been involved in numerous research and consulting engagements in inventory management, supplier relationships, and improving profitability at several large and mid-sized distributors. Before entering academia, she worked with several automotive companies on projects focused on optimizing transportation, material handling, and decision analysis systems.
Her research interests include empirical studies to assess the impact of good supply chain practices such as coordinated decision-making in stochastic supply chains, handling supply chains during times of crisis, and optimizing global supply chains on a company's financial health. Her recent research focuses on the skills and capabilities needed for workers to work in the new Industry 4.0 enhanced warehouses.

She received her Ph.D. in Operations Management and M.S. in Applied Statistics from The University of Alabama. She also has a bachelor's and master’s degree in industrial engineering from Anna University and Auburn University, respectively.
Jean-Francois Chamberland http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2983-9884 Texas A&M University [biography]

Dr. Jean-Francois Chamberland is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University. He currently holds an administrative appointment as the Associate Dean for Faculty Success in the College of Engineering.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025