Collaborative Research: Developing Diverse Leadership for Engineering

从各种来源和评论员看来，一系列持续存在的问题对工程专业构成了挑战。从对技术快速进步的担忧到环境保护，再到性别和种族公平和代表性问题，工程专业面临着重大挑战。两种新的教育模式对这些职业担忧做出了回应：史密斯学院（Smith College）的女性专用课程，致力于培养对社会责任的承诺；以及新的奥林工程学院（Olin College of Engineering），专注于将创业与工程相结合。史密斯学院工程项目的发展和奥林一所全新工程学院的建立创造了一个非凡的机会，通过系统地观察，可以被视为自然实验。为了“控制”创新在专业工程教育中的作用，提出了两个步骤：(1)利用二手资源对工程教育中的创新进行系统回顾；(2)对其他两个工程项目（麻省理工学院和马萨诸塞大学）的学生和其他关键利益相关者进行平行研究。为了从经验上检验新制度变革理论与学生发展之间的关系，一项为期六年的小组研究将在四个地点进行：史密斯学院、奥林工程学院、麻省理工学院和马萨诸塞大学。利用定量和定性数据，调查人员计划跟踪每所学校的一组学生，了解他们的课堂和大学关系、暑期实习和毕业后的职业，以建立一个模型，说明几个项目如何在下一代美国工程师中嵌入或克服性别和种族分层，以及其他问题。此外，他们建议在研究的第一年和第四年的两个时间点与各自机构的主要利益相关者进行访谈。史密斯和奥林的倡议构成了一个前所未有的机会，可以检查围绕分离主义和男女同校模式的现状、基本原理和规范，以确保专业中的公平和平衡，因此，这是一个为工程教育制定有效政策的独特机会。例如，它们提供了一个机会来探索工程教育的规范和实践，这些规范和实践抑制或促进了负责任变革的创造性领导，包括职业性别和种族构成的转变。同样，这些倡议提供了一个前所未有的机会来检验社会变革的新制度理论和专业发展理论中的重要命题。同时开设的两个工程教育新项目为制定有效的工程教育政策创造了机会，以促进公平，并为社会科学理论的发展做出贡献。

From a variety of sources and commentators, a persistent set of issues has posed a challenge to the profession of engineering. From concerns about rapid advances in technology to environmental protection to questions of gender and racial fairness and representation, the profession of engineering faces important challenges. Two new educational models are responsive to these professional concerns, Smith College's woman-only program with a strong commitment to nurturing a commitment to social responsibility and the new Olin College of Engineering with a focus on blending entrepreneurship with engineering.The development of an engineering program at Smith College and the establishment of an entirely new college of engineering at Olin create an extraordinary opportunity to take advantage, by systematically observing, what can be viewed as a natural experiment. To "control" for the role of innovation in professional engineering education, two steps are proposed: (1) the development of a systematic review, using secondary sources, of innovations in engineering education and (2) parallel studies of students and other key stakeholders at two other engineering programs, MIT and the University of Massachusetts.To test empirically the relationship between neo-institutional theories of change and students' development, a six-year panel study will be employed at four sites: Smith College, Olin College of Engineering, MIT and the University of Massachusetts. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, the investigators plan to follow a panel of students at each school through their classroom and college relationships, summer internships, and occupation immediately following graduate to develop a model of how the several programs embed or overcome gendered and racial stratification in the next generation of American engineers, among other issues. Also, they propose to conduct interviews with key stakeholders at the respective institutions at two points in time, year one and four of the study.The Smith and Olin initiatives constitute an unprecedented opportunity to examine the status, rationale, and norms that surround separatist and coeducational models to insure equity and balance in the professions and, as such, a unique opportunity to develop effective policy for engineering education. For example, they offer an opportunity to explore the norms and practices of engineering education that inhibit or promote creative leadership for responsible change, including transformations in the gender and racial composition of the profession. Equally, these initiatives provide an unprecedented opportunity to test important propositions in neo-institutional theories of social change and in theories of professional development. Together, the coincident opening of two new programs in engineering education creates an opportunity to contribute to the development of effective policies for engineering education to enhance equity and to contribute to the development of social science theory.