Sheila Tobias
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There is a growing consensus that “technological literacy” cannot stand alone, but has to be grounded in the intellectual discipline of engineering. Starting from that premise, the speaker set out to identify, locate, and write in detail about a dozen extant courses and in some instances entire programs that teach liberal arts students about engineering. The collection which she calls “case studies” are as of March 15, 2016 accessible from the ASEE.org web site. What they have in common are: significant faculty commitment and student enrollment. The mainly new courses and programs stem from no single source: from the dream and long-term commitment of individual faculty members (Princeton) to the initiative by a college president (Wesleyan), a college-wide commitment to include engineering in a newly constituted set of General Education “I” course offerings (University of Maryland) and a university-wide one-course Tech graduation requirement at Stony Brook, originating in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences that supports new course offerings in any department of engineering.
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In collaboration with ASEE, the 12 case studies including syllabi and commentary on pedagogy that works, together with a review of an earlier effort to redefine the The New Liberal Arts, and a background paper by President Emeritus James Duderstadt, are meant to become the stimulus and the core of a growing Inventory of courses, programs, and commentary.