Environmentally smart engineering education: A brief on a paradigm in progress

Journal of Engineering Education, Oct 2002 by Splitt, Frank G

ABSTRACT

Sustainable development has become the dominant economic, environmental, and social issue of the 21st century, yet its broad infusion within engineering education programs remains a challenge. This paper discusses the importance of environment and sustainable development considerations, the need for their widespread inclusion in engineering education, and the impediments to change. The roles of ABET and others in the evolution of these considerations in engineering education are presented; however, it is through the ABET engineering criteria that broad adoption of environment related considerations in engineering education will most likely occur. An effort to achieve this aim is described.

I. INTRODUCTION

Engineering education has undergone significant reform since the mid-1980s, with the environment and sustainable development emerging in the late 1980s as major issues not yet reflected in this reform. Speth and Smart said it well in 1990 [19], "In survey after survey, people call for a better environment and improved economic conditions. These are not mutually exclusive goals. Rather, they are necessary and mutually supporting conditions...businessmen, environmentalists, and politicians must forego finger-pointing and join together and create a global program for sustainable development." It was obvious then, that this issue was going to have a significant impact on industry and engineering education in the future.

At about the same time, during his term as the president of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), Ed Ernst initiated the formation process for an ABET Industry Advisory Council (IAC). It was his view that ABET was in need of more proactive involvement of industry leaders. He also saw ABET in a high-leverage position to affect change in engineering education since a major restructuring of the accreditation criteria and process would have significant long-term effects. The ABET IAC had its first meeting in May 1991, a time when President James Duderstadt of the University of Michigan, President Charles Vest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others, were calling for a fundamental change in the post-World War II model for engineering education. This was also the time when the National Science Foundation (NSF) was demonstrating increased interest in curricular innovation [18]. However, it was really the ABET efforts that provided a platform to implement major changes in engineering education as well as a venue for the broad introduction of environmental protection and sustainable development imperatives into engineering programs.

It was evident to the ABET IAC that sustainable development was becoming a dominant economic, environmental, and social issue of the 21st century [3, 13], and that a fundamental change in engineering education was required to help the next generation of engineers learn to design for sustainable development and long-- range competitiveness. This view was reflected in a letter sent to the ABET president, Al Kersich, by ABET IAC chairman, Mike Emery, that called upon ABET to bring about a major paradigm shift in engineering education [7]. Among other things, the ABET IAC asked that emphasis be placed on teamwork and an interdisciplinary understanding of the societal, ecological, financial, national, and global impacts of engineering. It also recommended a set of Accreditation Process Principles and Concepts & Supporting Strategies that later helped form the basis for ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 (ABET EC 2000): Criterion 3 Programs Outcomes and Assessment [8, 24].

The Accreditation Process Principles called for the "understanding of and work toward sustainable development,...safety and environmental impact." In the process of balancing specific guidance against flexibility of choice by engineering programs, the wording of the Accreditation Process Principles relative to environmental considerations was subsequently generalized. Thus, Criterion 3 presently does not reflect the emphasis that the ABET IAC Accreditation Process Principles placed on these considerations. The ABET IAC also asked that engineering programs seek to provide their graduates with a combination of skills, attributes, and characteristics among which were: "A holistic approach to achieve solutions to engineering challenges by integrating the elements of general education including human needs, culture, history and tradition, sociology, politics and government, economics and the environment." Emphasis on the environment and sustainable development was considered one of the ABET IAC's more important recommendations and was promulgated as such at ABET and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conferences [21].

Looking back, it can be understood why Criterion 3 was generalized to the extent that it was. The burden of developing case studies and other mechanisms that enable student learning in the areas listed is exactly where it should be - on the engineering programs. Unfortunately, a significant opportunity for an appropriate level of guidance may have been lost in the process of getting to this end objective.