Teaching the Grand Tradition of Modern Engineering through Introductory Courses for Engineering Students and for all Other Students in Higher Education

经过四分之一世纪的研究和教学，PI和他的同事们开发了一种入门级工程教育方法，将工程与文科重新联系起来，吸引了新的学生群体。该方法的核心思想是，效率、经济、伦理和美学选择都是工程设计的内在因素，而不是相互叠加的独立考虑。学生们开始明白工程不仅仅是技术工作，而是一项结合了纪律、想象力和负责任的选择的创造性活动。虽然其他试图将工程和人文学科联系起来的方法让工程专业的学生学习更多的文科课程，但PI和他的同事们开发的方法却带来了工程本身的人文潜力。导论课程的教学是通过视觉理解、数字作业和说明文来加强的。该项目的目的是通过学术出版物、一系列有组织的专题讨论会、公开讲座和巡回展览在全国范围内传播这项工作。美国国家科学基金会奖，连同其他补助金，是使基本的学术基础课程完成。一本教科书正在编写中，以完成从1776年至今美国主要工程创新的历史发展的三卷本系列。一本关于20世纪外国技术向美国转移的重要文章长度的著作也正在撰写中，这是关于20世纪美国伟大公共工程的两本书中的第二本。美国国家科学基金会奖还支持每年春季将有30名来自其他学院和大学的教师来到普林斯顿的年度研讨会和展览。在这个项目中，PI计划在学校和专业聚会上演讲，例如美国工程教育学会的年度会议，作为全体发言人。该项目的总体目标是帮助其他学校吸引非传统学生进入工程专业，并通过教授其优秀作品的现代传统来改善所有学生的工程教育。

Over a quarter century of research and teaching, the PI and his colleagues have developed an approach to engineering education at the introductory level that reconnects engineering to the liberal arts and attracts new groups of students to engineering. The core of the approach is the idea that efficiency, economy, and ethical and aesthetic choice are all intrinsic to engineering design, not separate considerations superimposed from without. Students come to understand that engineering is not mere technical work but is a creative activity that combines discipline, imagination, and responsible choice. While other approaches that try to link engineering and the humanities have engineering students take more liberal arts courses, the approach that the PI and his colleagues have developed brings out the humanistic potential in engineering itself. Teaching in introductory courses is reinforced through visual understanding, numerical work, and expository writing.The aim of this project is to disseminate this work nationally through scholarly publication, a structured series of symposia, public lectures, and traveling exhibitions.The NSF Award, along with other grants, is enabling the basic scholarly foundation of the courses to be completed. A textbook is being written that completes a three-volume series on the historical development of major American engineering innovations from 1776 to the present. An important article-length work on the transfer of foreign technology to the United States in the twentieth century is also being written, as is the second of two books on the great public works of the twentieth century United States.The NSF Award is also supporting an annual symposium and exhibition that will bring about thirty faculty from other colleges and universities to Princeton each spring. During this project, the PI plans to lecture at schools and in professional gatherings, such as the annual meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education, as a plenary speaker.The broad goal of the project is to help other schools attract non-traditional students to the engineering profession and to improve the engineering education of all students by teaching its modern tradition of outstanding works.