Shaping the future of American university education: conceiving engineering a liberalart
Barke, R.
O'Neil Lane, E.
Knoespel, K.
Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA;
This paper appears in: Technology and Society, 2001. Proceedings. International Symposium on Publication Date: 6-7 July 2001
On page(s):
213
- 220
Meeting Date: 07/06/2001
- 07/07/2001
Location: Stamford, CT
ISBN: 0-7695-1209-7
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/ISTAS.2001.937742
Current Version Published: 2002-08-07
Abstract
Students can no longer be expected to learn how to solve problems in a precisely defined area of engineering but need to be prepared to situate these problems into multiple settings. Conceiving engineering as a liberalart indicates that engineering knowledge is required not only for a specialized career path but also increasingly important for active participation in citizenship. This idea challenges universities to rethink fundamental notions of both the liberalarts and engineering. Experimentation with new curricula in these educational areas should be a priority of universities, especially engineering institutions. We explore evidence from Georgia Tech and other universities that differences between engineering and the liberalarts are drawn too sharply, that design with a large number of variables and incommensurable objectives requires new critical vocabularies for production, and that the idea of engineering as a liberalart offers an opportunity to develop needed curricular flexibility
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