Creating a truly multidisciplinary entrepreneurial educational environment

Journal of Engineering Education, Oct 2001 by Ochs, John B, Watkins, Todd A, Boothe, Berrisford W

Creating a Truly Multidisciplinary Entrepreneurial Educational Environment*

ABSTRACT

In our age of technological growth and change, the role of the engineer has evolved from lone specialist to team player, from internally focused to globally aware, from reactionary to entrepreneur. The entrepreneur has created much of our social wealth. The characteristics of the entrepreneur transcend academic disciplines, and social as well as economic status. To foster these characteristics among its students, Lehigh University is developing a multidisciplinary educational environment where entrepreneurial spirit can flourish. Lehigh's academic programs in Integrated Product Development (IPD), Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE), and Integrated Design Arts (IDA) integrate across Engineering, Business and Design Arts through sponsored projects and entrepreneurial teams, or E-Teams, consisting of students, faculty advisors, staff support and company mentors. Project sponsors include the full range from student entrepreneurs and other start-up companies, to established small, medium and large corporations. The multi-level approach to curricular integration includes pre-college outreach, freshman projects, curricula support, capstone projects and graduate projects. The educational environment includes a Campus Center; an entire building designed to support students project teams. This paper will discuss the design and implementation of these programs, our assessment and evaluation methods, lessons learned and future plans for improving this environment.

I. INTRODUCTION

The engineer as inventor is certainly not new. Many innovative products that we enjoy today were invented and created by engineers, but what about the engineer as entrepreneur? Textbook authors write and students study engineering design, concurrent engineering and design in a broad context.1-4 The question that confronts those that teach design is how broad and inclusive is the context that is presented to our student. Many schools have addressed this issue in the capstone project class.5 This reference contains an additional 36 references of various schools' approaches. Our answer is "as broad as possible" including engineering, business, industrial design and social sciences. To achieve this broadest possible context, Lehigh students work in multidisciplinary teams with company sponsors on real world projects requiring deliverable prototypes and business plans. Based on the industry feedback of the past four years, this active, collaborative, project-based learning is superior for developing the characteristics valued by employers. These characteristics include professional competency, industry experience, multi-functional communications skills, team-orientation, problem solving and decision making skills in ill-structured situations, and self-direction. We believe that this experiential learning approach is equally valid for the student entrepreneurs. The approach is to partner the entrepreneurial teams (E-Teams) with start-up companies, student entrepreneurs and others that have the entrepreneurial characteristics and potential for success. To modify the familiar saying, "familiarity breeds not contempt, but imitation."

Lehigh University has three notable programs that have embraced the E-Team project approach. The first and most estabfished program is the Integrated Product Development (IPD) Program. The second is a new program in Integrated Design Arts (IDA). The third is also new, the Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) Program. Both the IDA and IBE programs offer degrees, while IPD is designed to support existing majors.

II. INTEGRATED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (IPD) PROGRAM

Lehigh's Integrated Product Development Program provides a support structure to promote curricular and course adaptation of the E-Team project approach to education across the Lehigh Campus. The Integrated part of IPD refers to the requirement that the project team includes as many participants with varied background and capabilities as are needed to create successful project teams. It also means that the courses are integrated into various undergraduate and graduate curricula. Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics has taken the lead in adopting this approach. The Product in the IPD Program context is any electro-mechanical-optical device, software, chemical process, manufacturing process, a project or study that is to be delivered to an external sponsor. The program also emphasizes the development process itself, where the E-Team is expected to follow methods and best practices to manage the project, document decisions and communicate results. The IPD Program encourages student entrepreneurs from all disciplines to innovate and create within the realities of engineering, industrial design and business feasibility. The IPD Program focuses on five major areas (as shown in Figure 1): Pre-College Outreach, Freshman Design Projects, Engineering/Business/ Design Arts Sequences, Capstone Projects and Graduate Programs.