Work In Progress - On Building a Business/Engineering Education Partnership

This paper describes a comprehensive program to establish a true business and engineering education partnership between the Sam and Irene Black School of Business and the School of Engineering & Engineering Technology within Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. The paper addresses the question of the importance of these education partnerships and progress made towards achieving that goal and a plan to fully integrate it within the two schools. A business/engineering faculty team, working under the support of a GE Foundation grant, have already conducted research to identify the core business knowledge required of engineering students, piloted an interdisciplinary course, designed a project management course for engineers, and hosted a workshop attended by representatives from universities with similar goals. Faculty teams are currently working on studying the feasibility and designing a new business/engineering major and a truly integrated business minor for engineers. A new building that will house both schools in a genuinely integrated design will open in Fall 2006.