Presenting a New Opportunity for Engineering Students: Introduction of an Undergraduate Degree Plan in Leadership Engineering

Integration of engineering and liberal arts education is central to developing the engineer of the conceptual age. The art and science of engineering is key to providing engineers with the technical and system thinking capacity needed to achieve leadership in our complex modern society. The US is at a tipping point regarding global competitiveness in technological innovation, and to a very large extent, humanity is critically dependent on the duopoly of technological innovation and liberal thinking for improvement of quality of lifestyle. To contribute and support leadership in this interplay, we are creating a new degree program in Leadership Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). This program seeks to visualize and actuate a new paradigm for engineering education by responding to the call from students, alumni, businesses, and civic organisations, including the National Academies. To address these needs, the new program features problem-based, student-focused learning across disciplines and situated learning through professional practice experiences. Lessons learned in development of this program revolved around making sure that we provided enough rigor for ABET accreditation and still maintain a high degree of program flexibility, as is typical of many other types of degrees. As such, a delicate balance was achieved with the maximum number of hours in the program mandated by the State of Texas, the general education core mandated by the University, and still providing the needed Leadership Engineering Coursework, Internship requirement, and flexible tracks in Business, Education, and Technical Specialization. Of paramount importance is that all Leadership Engineering Courses will be student oriented problem/practice based learning with intrinsic motivation, self-direction, and autonomy through authentic project and leadership experiences. Thus, as Samuel Florman stated in The Introspective Engineer(1) in 1997: "We live in a technological age, and if our society is to flourish, many of our leaders should be engineers, and many of our engineers should be leaders." Details of planning for the new undergraduate program in Leadership Engineering at UTEP are discussed as well as input from key stakeholders. Included is the contextual development of the program, the parameters considered as key, and the finalized degree plan. The program features are explained including engineering accreditation, and tracks and stems that provide flexibility for students. Balancing the competing demands within the curriculum, proved challenging but attainable given the strong administrative support and leadership for this program, and UTEP's desire to provide innovative undergraduate engineering education that leads toward increased retention and advancing opportunities for serving underrepresented populations.