Communications of the ACM

most of the work in student teams.

They since expanded to five degrees (computer science, software and game development, information systems, technology management, and Web design and development) all based in the same set of principles and methods. The students say the experience is intense and the connection to industry mentors extremely worthwhile.

These three examples demonstrate that “new engineer” principles can flourish in protected settings. The students have been enthusiastic about their education.

The New Engineer Principles

A Whole New Engineer gathers the New Engineer principles in use at iFoundry and Olin into one place. It gives solid justification based on education history about the pedigree of each principle.

The principles are:

˲ Become competent at engineering practices and technologies.

˲Demonstrate competent performance in solving engineering problems, not in taking tests and quizzes.

˲ Become competent at using language for effective coordination and communication—especially speech acts, disclosing, and listening deeply for concerns in individuals and their communities.

˲ Learn to be a designer—someone who can propose combinations of existing components and technologies to take care of real concerns.

˲Learn to be an entrepreneur— someone who can help a community transform their practices to generate a better life for them.

˲ Learn how innovation works and how to detect and navigate the waves of possible change.

˲ Appeal to each student’s intrinsic
motivation, the sense that they can “in-
vent it for themselves.”
Goldberg and Somerville character-
ize the skill set of the new whole engi-
neer as six minds:

˲ Analytical. Ability to rigorously analyze problems and apply scientific and mathematical principles to their solutions.

˲ Design. Ability to imagine what does not exist, make unexpected connections, and propose new combinations of components that solve problems.

˲ Linguistic. Ability to use language
enormously appealing to students and
potential employers.

In 1999, a small team founded the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (see http://www.olin.edu) and designed it from the ground up. They wanted to graduate engineering innovators who would be leaders in solving pressing global challenges. They wanted their engineers to be client-centered and capable of developing systems that make people’s lives better. They wanted students to learn through hands-on projects, find their own voices, and work on teams in partnership with the faculty. Olin’s students absolutely love their school. In just a dozen years, Olin has achieved numerous high rankings in various education surveys and is now much sought-after by other engineering schools trying to rethink their own approaches.

In 2007, a small team at the University of Illinois decided to transform their experiments, begun a decade earlier, into an incubator for new educational approaches in engineering. They called their project iFoundry or the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (see http://www. ifoundry.illinois.edu). Their earlier classroom experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of student-led teams in promoting student engagement. Five departments joined the incubator. Drawing on reports about “Engineers of 2020” and their own experiences with students, they formed a vision of a new engineer. In 2008, they signed a partnership with Olin College to share educational methods and insights. As at Olin, their students became wildly enthusiastic about learning engineering in the new way.

In 2003, a group from Northface University (now called Neumont University, neumont.edu) in Salt Lake City, UT, asked me to help them with an idea they had been working on for several years. They were designing a software engineering degree from the ground up and were convinced the principles of “Educating a New Engineer” would attract students and industry and would be accreditable. I helped them design a three-year project-based software engineering curriculum that used methods like the modern “flipped classroom,” minimized lecture classes, involved industry mentors, and did