Engineering Dynamic Development

• In Event: Dynamic Education: Becoming Forward Thinking About What We Teach

Short Description

Today’s graduates need dynamic leadership skills to effectively navigate interconnected global environments and deliver creative solutions to the grand challenges facing humankind. This presentation will introduce an innovative approach by the College of Engineering at Oregon State University that is scalable, inclusive, and continuously relevant to what the world needs.

Detailed Abstract

The requirements for engineers and scientists have evolved dramatically in the past two decades. Technology enables immediate access to a base of human knowledge that accelerates exponentially. Physical structures are now built to interact positively with the environment, nanotechnology manipulates materials at one-billionth of meter, biotechnology continues to revolutionize agriculture, and healthcare is being increasingly individualized. But not all change has been constructive, and the accelerating speed of change in an ever more interconnected world amplifies the complexity of problems.

Society today needs graduates who possess broad knowledge across disciplines, deep expertise within a single domain, and well-developed cross-cutting leadership skills necessary to effectively navigate complex global dynamics and deliver interdisciplinary solutions to the grand challenges (The National AcademiesTM) facing humankind. This session will introduce participants to an innovative program created to accelerate engineering students at Oregon State University as EP2IC leaders, in a manner that is scalable, practical, accessible, and highly engaging of industry partners.

After deciding on a co-curricular model—to circumvent access costs and degree completion challenges as potential barriers, program structure and a corresponding electronic program management system (hereafter referred to as the "Portal") was created to enable facilitation of meaningful learning and development in a non-traditional learning environment. Learning outcomes were identified in an iterative process that involved review of best practices, research literature, expertise of a leadership educator hired to direct the program, and input from industry professionals representing the spectrum of industry sectors graduates will enter. Learning outcomes emerged and five subsequent key competency areas for leadership development were identified. These competency areas are the program's "EP2IC Pillars" (Ethical, Purposeful, Professional, Inclusive, and Collaborative).

The Portal organizes all aspects of the learner experience. The program requirements include: a) initial application and registration, b) completion of three seminars — and follow up intentional mental processing of learning therein — in each of the five Pillars, c) three mentoring interactions, d) and a professional experience (internship or formal research) with required reading from a Leadership Library. The Portal enables registrations, tracking, assessment of progress, automatic reminders, as well as scheduled follow ups for intentional mental processing of learning through program experiences — a resource to members and an evaluation metric for the program. The Portal benefits from integrations such as a single sign on university username/password and swipe of student ID cards to trigger recording of member participation in activities.

To ensure practical application and relevancy to current and developing global context, the program is highly collaborative with professionals from divergent industry, academic, and public administration contexts. Involving these partners in the development and delivery of core program structure that involves completion of seminars in each of the EP2IC Pillars. Following are a few examples of the dozens of interactive workshops designed and delivered for members to select from each year to complete Pillar requirements:

Change/Transformation:
A session with an engineering alumnus turned business executive with a myriad of personal experiences in mergers, acquisitions, and organizational realignments from all stages of the career stream. Utilizing content from John Kotter’s book, Leading Change (2012) to frame critical elements of effective change, combined with case studies of actual circumstances, to challenge students and refine their perspective on change and change management.

Cultural Dynamics in Global Business:
This session utilizes the Business Model of Intercultural Analysis (BMIA) to introduce concepts of intercultural considerations and their direct impact on organizational effectiveness. Students engage with a diverse panel of professionals representing various social identities, industry sectors, and global career experience working across countries. The panel of professionals provides lived examples of concepts presented in the BMIA framework to solidify learning for students.

Emotional Intelligence:
Members receive a copy of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry, take the EQ assessment, and then engage in a workshop with an engineering alumnus who went on to complete an executive MBA and now is a prominent business coach. The session focuses the meaning and application of their results to self-management and interaction with others.

Ethics:
Members complete the Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI) and engage in a workshop to explore the meaning and application of their results to self-management and interaction with others. During this workshop, students also apply learning to navigation of a complex case study from an engineering alumnus that is now a senior executive in the energy industry.

Implicit Bias:
Members complete two implicit bias association evaluations from the Project Implicit® at Harvard University to prime their thinking and awareness of bias and then participate in a facilitated discussion on why and how unconscious bias happens and how they can work against acting on said biases. This is followed by round tables with professional engineers and business people representing various industries and social identities to discuss how both they personally—and their companies—are and have been impacted by implicit bias.

Organizational Culture:
An interactive activity with real-life examples of Organizational Culture and the three core contributing elements (Values, Behaviors, and Operations) facilitated by an alumnus and the President/CEO of Porsche Consulting who typically engages this content with Fortune 500 companies.

The program will have completed three full years of operation by the start of the 2017 Global Conference. This session will enable invaluable opportunities to: 1) garner critical feedback from leadership experts at the conference, and 2) share best practices and lessons learned with others in the community. This session would be of particular interest to education professionals. It would also be appealing to those in industry or public administration—to examine a collaborative program structure that strategically leverages meaningful engagement from industry professionals. In short, it is a session for all interested in an innovative structure that enables highly-relevant leadership development to better equip individuals for the grand challenges facing the world in the 21st century.

Participant

• Scott N. Paja, Oregon State University