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CUE 2006

Last Words: Broadening Participation — A Call to Action for Engineering Education

By Jacquelyn F. Sullivan

Years of earnest focus on increasing diversity in our college have convinced me that elementary school is not too early to build the foundation for an engineering education—one that supports an informed citizenry, scaffolds an adaptive work force, and creates the right innovations for our time and our planet. The best-intentioned diversity outreach and recruitment initiatives of engineering colleges nationwide have had little impact on increasing access to the richly textured future an engineering education yields. Astonishingly, our national conscience is not aware of the role that engineers play in medical advances, in alleviating human suffering, or in creating the iPod that put 10,000 tunes at our fingertips.

We're engineers; we create things and we're proud of it. We understand that innovative, technological breakthroughs occur at the convergence of disparate disciplines, yet we draw unnatural distinctions between collegiate engineering education and the K-12 educational experiences that drive the preparation and passion of youngsters to pursue engineering futures. If the need for technological literacy for all citizens isn't enough to compel us towards a K-16 systems approach, consider what role today's youth—tomorrow's engineers —could play in closing our record $724 billion trade gap.

Our educational challenge is a design challenge: How do we "make" the right engineers for our time and our nation's future? Engineers must respond to sudden change, yet we balk at transformative changes in our educational system. Beyond the well-worn argument of diversity being about fairness, half of the U.S. population will soon be non-white, demanding that engineering solutions increasingly serve more diverse consumers. We're stumped: How do we recruit more of our native talent to the engineering fold? How do we overcome the intractable challenges of women and minority students being conspicuously under-represented in our engineering colleges and professional practice? And more broadly, will today's youngsters have the skills to thrive in a global, change-driven society?

Our collective challenge is to design a seamless K-16 engineering system that integrates engineering with the liberal arts, so technological literacy is considered a component of basic literacy.

In essence, our challenge is to design an educational system that creates tomorrow's leaders, prepared for a world where analytical decision-making is required of all.

Opportunities abound. The explosion of knowledge in new fields— nanotechnology, biotechnology, cyberinfrastrucure—presents unprecedented opportunities for engineers to develop technologies to address grand societal challenges. And, as never before, the integration of technology in our public infrastructure calls for more involvement by engineers in the setting of public policy, changing the behind-the-scenes role that engineers have historically played in society. Increasingly, an engineer's place is in the House—and in the Senate. Let's make it so.

Our youth don't pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) futures to the extent of students in many other countries, where STEM studies are perceived as the path to a secure future. Comparing U.S. university student STEM participation with students from China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan is stunning. Is it a coincidence that in many of these countries engineers pervade in top government positions and engineering students occupy up to a third of undergraduate seats in universities?

We must also overcome the gender divide. Scant interest is expressed in engineering by young women by the time they are half way through high school. When one considers that girls now dominate the top deciles of high school graduates, how can we be content that many of the best and brightest students shun our profession?

Beyond the economic imperative and our profession's inability to connect with the vast reservoir of female and minority talent, perhaps it is about fairness after all. Our goal should be the full participation of women and people of color—representing our entire citizenry and the nation's demographic mix. In our knowledge-based society, it is no longer feasible to attain a decent standard of living if one isn't armed with the knowledge and skills for our times. The lack of interest in engineering among our nation's youth is our problem—and our challenge—and a tremendous opportunity for our profession. We want and need people educated in cross-disciplinary, quantitative decision-making to be at the helm, developing new technologies and policies that shape both our nation's economic future and our planet's health. We need today's youngsters to be players tomorrow, not only as users of technology, but as responsible developers of responsible new technologies.

So, what's to be done? Early and pervasive engineering experiences provide knowledge from which youngsters can make informed choices and engage in the discourse of our times. K-16  engineering is about arming young adults with the ability to thrive in a technolog-ically driven society; to prepare tomorrow's adults to understand the complexities of contemporary issues, and to have an informed opinion about trade-offs they make today for future generations. In short, to be smart consumers and to engage with knowledge in technical decision-making that impacts their lives. And yes, to become well-rounded engineers. We must move engineering beyond the stealth profession, guarding the excitement of it as the best-kept secret on the planet, and make engineering visible, exciting, and relevant to the lives of K-12 youth and teachers.

We cannot simply harvest the brightest high school graduates; we must grow the talent to fuel our profession. We must build long-term and skill-building relationships between our engineering colleges and K-12 schools, exploiting engineering as a vehicle for the integration of science and math learning in ways that connect youth to the joys, challenges, and reality of a future in engineering. Experiences that help youth appreciate the wonders of engineering in their everyday lives and enable them to internalize engineering as a helping profession that speaks to their hearts. A profession that strives to alleviate human suffering through development of responsible technologies for a safer and prosperous future for all peoples.

The challenges are great, and so are the opportunities. It is imperative to our nation's health to make bold and coherent K-16 engineering choices. We face competition from low-wage, high human capital communities across the globe, and we must prepare for this wave of change by designing engineering education for a future that recognizes the interrelated K-16 system. As my favorite (and recently deceased) Professor Dumbledore said, "It's our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." We know what is possible; our challenge is to make the possible probable for our college and beyond.

Jacquelyn Sullivan is co-director of the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program at CU-Boulder, which provides hands-on engineering education to K-16 students.