Integrating Engineering Leadership Throughout an Undergraduate Engineering Degree

Abstract

This innovative practice full paper describes an effort to create a thread of engineering leadership development throughout an undergraduate engineering degree at The University of Texas at El Paso. The first bachelor’s degree of its kind in the nation, this new degree is housed in the Department of Engineering Education and Leadership and has a heavy emphasis on integrating fundamental engineering theory and skills with business acumen and leadership development (e-lead.utep.edu). In developing the leadership component of the degree, the faculty understood that one of the most effective methods by which people learn to develop as leaders is through practice. Therefore, rather than place all leadership development in a single course in the Engineering Leadership Program (E-Lead), the degree was designed to have a coordinated thread of leadership development throughout the degree plan, encompassing both curricular and extracurricular opportunities. Focused heavily on practice and application, a framework for leadership development was designed to take a tiered approach. For all students, in-class activities introduce fundamental concepts of engineering leadership in the context of teamwork and engineering project management in the E-Lead courses. For those students interested in more in-depth experience and training, additional extracurricular leadership development opportunities were made available in the form of coaching or attending leadership conferences and workshops. In all of these activities, the focus is on helping students to develop their character, capacity, and competence. Having recently graduated the first cohort of students using this leadership development approach, this paper describes the framework used for leadership development and the key activities dispersed throughout the engineering leadership thread. Further, this paper includes qualitative results from assessing the impact of these activities on our graduating cohort.