Development of a Leadership, Policy, and Change
Course for Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics Graduate Students
Monica F. Cox Carlotta A. Berry Karl A. Smith
Purdue University Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Purdue University
I. INTRODUCTION addition to demonstrating leadership principles
and understanding policy, engineers also must
The Engineer of 2020 reports that “by 2020, Abstract
we aspire to educating engineers who will as- have dynamism, agility, resilience and flexibility This paper describes a graduate
sume leadership positions from which they can to adapt to the ever-changing world and tech- level engineering education course,
serve as positive influences in the making of nologies. It will be the engineer’s ability to learn “Leadership, Policy, and Change in
new things quickly and to apply knowledge to Science, Technology, Engineering,
public policy and in the administration of gov- and Mathematics (STEM) Education.”
ernment and industry” [1, p. 50, NAE]. In addi- new problems and contexts that will influence how
Offered for the first time in 2007, the
tion, the National Association of Colleges and others within the world receive innovations [1]. course integrated the perspectives
Employers (NACE) 2007 Job Outlook reports In response to the growing importance of of three instructors representing
that employers are looking for candidates who leadership, policy, and change in the lives of disciplines of engineering, educa-
future engineers, engineering education faculty tion, and engineering education.
have in-class and out-of-class leadership ex- Included within this paper is justi-
perience [2]. Despite these recommendations, within the School of Engineering Education at
fication for creating such a course
Vandeveer [3] found that many undergradu- Purdue have made deliberate efforts to prepare for STEM graduate students, infor-
ate students within engineering departments their graduates for positions in local, national, mation about current efforts to in-
do not receive the leadership or management and international governments, to help them un- tegrate leadership and policy in en-
derstand how to create policy that would benefit gineering programs, descriptions of
skills that are needed for them to succeed as the course units and course deliver-
leaders within future engineering positions. If engineers, and to allow them to engage in con-
ables, and lessons learned by course
the engineering profession is to define its own versations about change via the development instructors. Authors acknowledge
future, it must take a leadership role in creatin