Peter Golding, Roger V Gonzalez, Meagan Kendall, Gilbert Moreno Jr, Richard T Schoephoerster, and Scott Starks
University of Texas at El Paso
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We recount the major milestones for establishing an innovative engineering education department at UTEP, a major Hispanic-serving university. The process of initiating a new paradigm for STEM education and leadership is presented as a historical narrative, from initial conception in 2007 through achieving state authorization, occurring in late 2014.
New undergraduate and graduate program have been established, enabled through partnership with major US companies, who have provided encouragement, direct input, and support for the new programs. The commencement of the UTEP project kicked into high-gear during 2008, with James Duderstadt presenting his approach to engineering for a changing world (Duderstadt 2008), which provides a roadmap to the future of engineering practice, research and education in the USA.
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Our new programs are shared through experiential practice-centric engineering education. Concomitantly, this has been enabled through new technology utilization. Additionally, we have been fortunate to proceed with our initiatives in the wake of other ground-breaking and landmark new US engineering programs, such as the one initiated at Olin College. We have worked in partnership with Olin to translate their methods and practices across to our own cultural and educational setting, in a own public, urban institution, knowing that if we can achieve success in doing thereupon, the approach can well become a model for similar institutions across the USA.
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We guide stakeholders through the process needed to establish our new programs, and share the experience of implementation and scale-up. The purpose of the contribution is to share strategic planning, project leadership and management, and to provide ideas, best practices, and lessons learnt, which may benefit institutions following the pathway to their own destiny of serving students in the 21st century. ESW and created by participants.