February 2005

Future of America calls for more students in engineering pathway

Linda Katehi, Purdue University College of Engineering

Trends in engineering education represent a challenge and a call to action. The course of action we choose to take not only will have an impact on engineering education, but also on America's economic advantage and continued vitality.

According to the ACT, the standardized-test provider, applications to engineering programs across the country have dropped 35 percent during the past 10 years. Since 2002, international engineering student applications have been down 35 percent at Purdue University, with even larger declines at other universities. More international students are opting for universities outside the United States and enrolling instead in China, India and Great Britain.

We ignore these enrollment trends at our peril. Engineers work to improve quality of life, help solve the problems of the world, drive the economy and build the future. From bioengineering to biosecurity, from nanotechnology to information technology, engineers are laying the foundation for tomorrow just as they brought us the benefits of the industrial, space and computer ages.

Engineers are critical to our prosperity and a major part of our nation's future economic growth and technology leadership.

It's time to acknowledge this new challenge and call on leaders from education and engineering organizations to work together to better prepare and attract domestic students. By pooling resources and expertise, we can foster an interest in engineering at an earlier age and, in this way, increase the number of individuals entering the educational pipeline.

Purdue and other university and public/private research and educational organizations are already at work, partnering with the National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council, American Society for Engineering Education and National Science Foundation. The goal is to create innovative programs that meet the needs of aspiring engineers, foster an interest in engineering at the elementary and secondary levels of education, and increase the numbers of women and minorities in the field.

Project Lead the Way is one program designed to accomplish this goal. This national project provides pre-engineering/engineering technology education in more than 500 elementary or secondary schools across 31 states. The Indiana Department of Education and Purdue partners in the Project Lead the Way network are involved with more than 600 Indiana schools, making the state second only to New York in participating schools.

Indiana's course offerings are approved by the Indiana Department of Education. The high school curriculum includes engineering design, computer integrated manufacturing, principles of engineering, digital electronics, and engineering design and development. The middle school courses focus on design, electronics, automations and engineering mechanics.

Another program working to attract more students and strengthen engineering education is a community outreach effort founded at Purdue in 1995. The program, Engineering Projects in Community Service, or EPICS, has been adopted by 13 other universities across the nation, including the University of Notre Dame and Butler University.

This year, the program includes 400 Purdue students in 20 teams working with elementary schools, special needs organizations and other not-for-profit programs to help solve engineering-based problems in the community and teach children about engineering.

For example, at Happy Hollow Elementary School in West Lafayette, Purdue engineering students worked with fourth- through sixth-grade students to develop technology-based interfaces to improve school science, computing and media facilities. The completed project includes a "color wall" to demonstrate the principles of colored light and a "life-size camera" that used strobe lights, a dark room and phosphorous sheets to capture a student's shadow on the wall.

As another part of the solution, Purdue this past year created the Purdue Department of Engineering Education. The department's goal is to give K-16 teachers the skills and tools to better prepare students for careers in engineering. This program recently received approval from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to offer a master's degree of science, a master's degree of science in engineering education and a doctoral degree of philosophy.

While Purdue was the first to develop an academic department dedicated to engineering education, others are moving in that direction, including Arizona State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Penn State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Working together, we can ensure that the United States remains a global leader in technology and engineering, and this will keep our nation prosperous and strong.

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