IUSE / Professional Formation of Engineers: Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (IUSE/PFE: RED)

Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (hereinafter referred to as RED) is designed to build upon previous efforts in engineering education research. Specifically, previous and ongoing evaluations of the NSF Engineering Education and Centers Division program and its predecessors, as well as those related programs in the Directorate for STEM Education, have shown that prior investments have significantly improved the first year of engineering students’ experiences, incorporating engineering material, active learning approaches, design instruction, and a broad introduction to professional skills and a sense of professional practice – giving students an idea of what it means to become an engineer. Similarly, the senior year has seen notable change through capstone design experiences, which ask students to synthesize the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities they have gained with professional capacities, using reflective judgment to make decisions and communicate these effectively. However, this ideal of the senior year has not yet been fully realized, because many of the competencies required in capstone design, or required of professional engineers, are only partially introduced in the first year and not carried forward with significant emphasis through the sophomore and junior years. The Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and STEM Education (EDU) are funding projects as part of the RED program, in alignment with the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) framework and Professional Formation of Engineers (PFE) initiative. These projects are designing revolutionary new approaches to engineering education, ranging from changing the canon of engineering to fundamentally altering the way courses are structured to creating new departmental structures and educational collaborations with industry. A common thread across these projects is a focus on organizational and cultural change within the departments, involving students, faculty, staff, and industry in rethinking what it means to provide an engineering program. In order to continue to catalyze revolutionary approaches, while expanding the reach of those that have proved efficacious in particular contexts, the RED program supports four tracks: RED Planning (Track 1), RED Adaptation and Implementation (Track 2), RED Innovation (Track 3), and RED Innovation Partnerships (Track 4). Two- and...

*Who May Serve as PI: For all tracks, the Principal Investigator (PI) must be a Department Chair/Head (or equivalent) of a department for whom a significant percentage of students will graduate or transfer to a program with a bachelor’s degree in engineering or engineering technology. The PI must be empowered to provide leadership for the proposed change process. In cases where the institutional responsibilities of a Department Chair/Head do not enable them to support the degree of change being sought, a Dean, Provost, or other senior leader may serve as PI, provided they will be responsible for the active leadership of the RED project. The qualifications of the PI can be justified in the required letter from senior institutional leadership. It is recommended that projects consider including individuals with expertise in (a) engineering education research and (b) organizational change on the leadership team.