Cultivating global mindsets without leaving campus: Building interculturally competent engineer

This innovative practice paper describes a one-year pilot program designed to intentionally develop intercultural competencies in undergraduate engineering students, without leaving campus. The design of the program was informed by theoretical frameworks about national cultural differences and development of intercultural competencies. The activities of the program included, but were not limited to, exposing students to other cultures, constructing active learning environments that simulated cross-cultural dialogues, reflection activities, and individual mentoring. The effectiveness of the program was assessed via pre- and post-assessments of intercultural competence using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The IDI scores from the final program evaluation indicated that most participants moved from a monocultural mindset towards the transition to a more global mindset after completing the program. Most importantly, the difference in pre- and post-IDI scores was statistically significant with a p-value <; 0.001. This study offers implications for faculty and staff, who are involved in developing globally competent engineers by modeling how to equip students to lead diverse engineering teams, and build effective strategies for conflict resolution, without leaving campus. The effectiveness of the activities, limitations of this research, and future directions of the program are discussed.