American Society for Engineering Education

Liberal Education Division

April 1996 Newsletter

Engineering education is being reexamined by both educators and their advisors from the large and small companies that hire graduates. The results are causing many academic institutions to change their curricula to focus on developing knowledge and characteristics that they feel are appropriate for their graduates. Clearly, different institutions have different missions and, therefore, the attributes of graduates will differ from school to school.

In discussions with industry, however, there seems to be general agreement that the technical backgrounds of engineering graduates are appropriate and often excellent. The area in which industry would like to see improvement is in the, so called, soft skills. By these they mean, communication skills, team work, economic understanding, societal context, and global awareness. This makes it very important for engineering schools, in reviewing their curricula, to include liberal arts and humanities faculty in the conversation.

I would like to focus on communication skills first. Improvement of these skills is not accomplished by the mere completion of a speech or technical writing course. This subject must be viewed more broadly by engineering and liberal arts faculty working together. A continuous initiative is necessary; team teaching in courses that include oral, written, and multimedia presentations is useful. Certainly, the involvement of liberal arts faculty in engineering courses where reports are written, and presentations made, is essential.

Most institutions have core curricula in liberal arts, and engineering students rarely stray from standard courses. Therefore, the second area of collaboration that is important for us to focus on is in the offering of courses for the purpose of enhancing societal awareness, for example: the politics of engineering economics and environmental issues; the questions of nuclear engineering and industrial conversion; the ethical responsibilities of the engineer and the technician; the relationship of the scientist and the artist to the local and global communities; and a general course in cross cultural communication. Courses such as these can be team taught by engineers and liberal arts faculty, so that both the technical and non-technical aspects of the problem can be discussed and understood. Non-engineering students should be encouraged to register for these courses so that discussion can be enhanced by differing viewpoints and team projects can be assigned.

Dialogue between humanities and liberal arts, and engineers and technologists on campus, is vital. Such ongoing cooperation leads to curriculum development and more fruitful and interesting teaching and learning environments the ultimate benefit being engineers who will better satisfy the needs of the workplace and whose best humanitarian instincts will prevail.

As many of you are aware, the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is developing a new set of accrediting criteria, called "ABET Engineering Criteria 2000" These criteria are likely to have significant impact on the humanities and social science curriculum. The current draft in my possession, from July 1995, is to undergo a comment period from now until the end of 1997. It would be prudent for all of us concerned about the liberal education component of the curriculum to examine these criteria carefully, assess their potential impact on our own curricula, and make our voices heard at the accrediting board. The Liberal Education Division of the ASEE should be a major force in any discussion involving our own curricula.

The major impact on liberal education of the proposed criteria is that the requirement for a minimum percentage of the engineering curricula to be devoted to humanities and social science courses is being deleted. Instead, a series of functional requirements are being established. These include demonstration of interpersonal skills, the ability to work in teams, emphasis on effective communication and professional and ethical responsibility, awareness of the global societal context of engineering, and knowledge of contemporary issues. The key statement summarizing these provisions is to be found in criterion four, which calls for "a general education component that complements the technical content of the curriculum and is consistent with the program and institution objectives."

It seems clear from the proposal that ABET is planning to evaluate the humanities and social science offerings in part in light of their contribution to the professional component of the curriculum. A new statement in criterion four makes the point: "The curriculum must prepare students for engineering practice and design culminating in a major design experience based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier coursework and incorporating engineering standards and realistic constraints that include most of the following considerations: economic, environmental, sustainability, manufacturability, ethical, health and safety, social, and political." The criteria thus not only view the liberal education component as the traditional means to "becoming an educated person," but also assume that it has a concrete contribution to make to the process of engineering practice and design. I believe that this places new, and perhaps unexpected, responsibilities on those charged with liberal education responsibilities, including increased interaction with our engineering colleagues and potential reformulation of our course offerings. However, I also believe that it makes the humanities and social sciences more important in engineering education than ever before, and thus provides us with a whole new set of opportunities.

At Rose-Hulman, we are responding to the challenge of the new criteria by undertaking a fundamental reexamination of our humanities and social science requirements Courses which have in the past seemed only borderline to the humanities and social science mission are taking on a new importance. Courses which might have seemed too applied will perhaps become central to our educational responsibilities. Our task will be to harmonize the professional emphasis of the criteria with the traditional curriculum of the humanities and social sciences. At colleges and universities where something of a gulf between engineering and other departments exists, the task of coordinating the new requirements among departments is likely to face significant barriers. To help us begin grappling with these issues, the Liberal Education Division will offer a panel on the new ABET criteria at the upcoming national meeting. It should be of interest to all engineering educators.

On a more personal note, I will be in Japan from mid-March until mid-August, working at Kanazawa Institute of Technology. I will be absorbing information about the liberal education component of Japanese engineering education and talking to a variety of groups about engineering ethics in the U.S. I also plan to do some comparative work based on my investigation. It any of you have any relevant information, leads, or simply are interested in engineering ethics internationally, please contact me by email at my current address: Heinz.Luegenbiehl@RoseHulman.edu. My mail will be forwarded. Of course, should any of you happen to be in Japan, I have a large enough apartment for company.

In closing, let me encourage all of you to attend the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The Liberal Education program group, headed by Lance Schachterle and by co-chair David Ollis, has put together a substantial program, which should be very appealing to the entire ASEE membership. I look forward to seeing many of you there, and especially at the Division business meeting, which provides a great opportunity to meet others interested in liberal education. At the business meeting we also discuss and, in a preliminary fashion, outline a program for the following year. If you have any interest in presenting a paper, chairing a session, seeing a specific topic dealt with on the program, or in becoming more active in the running of the Division, be sure to attend. The invitation applies not only to those teaching in the humanities and social sciences, but to technical faculty as well. We have bee making a somewhat successful effort at getting more technical faculty actively involved in Division business, so no one will feel out of place. See you in Washington!

Throughout my professional lifetime, within engineering programs the role of "H/SS" -- Humanities and Social Sciences -- has been guaranteed by the requirement from the professional accrediting board (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology or ABET) that all programs bearing their cachet must contain "one half-year of humanities and social sciences" within an assumed four-year curriculum. (1995-96 "Criteria for Accrediting Programs in Engineering in the United States," IV.C.3.a. (2).)

All this is now changing.

At their summer 1995 meeting, the ABET group concerned with engineering programs voted to begin consideration of an entirely new approach to engineering education one much closer to that used by the regional accrediting agencies than by professional societies. Instead of specifying the amount of time a student must spend in the classroom in H/SS, the new guidelines will ask each institution to define its mission in engineering education, and then to indicate how the following provide an education consistent with that mission:

• "detailed published educational objectives,"
• a curriculum emerging from those objectives, and
• a "system of ongoing evaluation that demonstrates achievement of these objectives and uses the results to improve effectiveness of the program."

Rather than "bean-counting" what courses students have taken, ABET visitors in the future will analyze the relationships among stated institutional mission, educational objectives, curriculum, and measured outcomes.

It is quite possible some institutions may forego a major role for H/SS within their mission statements. Indeed, over the years I have heard more than one dean of a large engineering college within a very large university lament the time wasted by his students in taking unexciting and poorly taught H/SS courses in another college within the university. The argument goes: "How much better for the student to get some more leading edge technology, or computer, or technical writing courses in, than to slog through some boring introductory lecture courses in fields they care little about."

The new "ABET Criteria 2000" does not, however, encourage institutions to abandon pursuing those objectives and outcomes often associated with the study of the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the new criteria state quite emphatically that "engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates have":

• an ability to function on multidisciplinary teams;
• an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility;
• an ability to effectively communicate;
• the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global societal context;
• a recognition of the need for and an ability to engage in lifelong learning; and
• a knowledge of contemporary issues.

Many members of the ASEE Liberal Education Division could easily see connections between these desiderata and what and how we currently teach.

These new criteria are now out for a two-year public review and comment. If the new criteria are officially adopted in something like the current form, they would be phased in beginning in 1998, and would become universal with the coming of the new century in 2001.

If these new criteria -- the most fundamental rethinking of how engineering education is organized so far in my career accepted, the change will be dramatic. If you or your colleagues have not begun discussing the implications of this new approach on how your H/SS program is organized, and even justified, now is a good time to begin.

At least one paper (my own) of the 1996 ASEE LED sessions, in session 3661"New Directions in Liberal Education," will wrestle with this issue. I look forward to learning about what others will be doing to prepare for the new game in town that will come if and when the new criteria are implemented.

Lance Schachterle
WPI
Worcester, MA 01609;
508-831-5514

Herman Estrin has enjoyed fifty years of teaching English to 25,000 students at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as well as at the University of Paris, University of Alaska, Columbia University of British Columbia, University of Alabama, University of Hawaii, and Rio de Janeiro. He enjoyed every year of these experiences because he taught English at every level from freshmen to graduate students as well as Upward Bound and Equal Opportunity Students.

In addition, he served as a consultant in writing and oral communication for business and industry, such as the American Electric Power, ITT-DCD, Cruy Construction Co., Port Authority of NY and NJ, and New York Catholic Medical Center, among others. Also, he chaired workshops for teachers of English concerning the effective techniques of teaching technical writing in such cities as Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and San Diego.

Among the texts he authored or edited are The New Scientish: Methods and Values, Technical and Professional Writing: A Practical Anthology, Technical Writing in the Corporate World, The Teaching of Technical Writing, and Guidelines for Writing Theses and Dissertations. He also wrote and published four hundred educational and scholarly articles.

Estrin is the first recipient of the NJIT's Robert W. Van Houten Alumni Award for teaching excellence, and the winner of the Western Electric Fund Award for excellence in teaching engineering students. As a charter member of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, he was elevated to the rank of Fellow for exceptional achievement in technical writing and teaching.

He founded and sponsored twenty-five annual New Jersey Writers Conferences, and is the organizer and director of the state-wide poetry competition of New Jersey and editor of thirteen annual poetry books, such as The Best Poetry in New Jersey and Poetic Engineers. In 1976 he founded the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame and currently serves as its director. About three hundred New Jersey authors have been inducted into this prestigious organization.

In 1984 Jacques Chirac, currently President of France, awarded him the Silver Medal for his "outstanding teaching of Master of Chemical Engineering students of the University of Paris." In 1991 Henry Pradeaux, Minister of National Education of France, named Estrin "an officer in the Order of the Academic Palmes."

The New Jersey Education Association awarded him the Distinguished Service to Education (1986). He received the Cullimore Medal for Distinguished Service to NJIT (1987). Also, Teachers College, Columbia University gave him the Distinguished Alumnus Award (1988), and Drew University awarded him the Distinguished Alumnus Achievement Award (1957).

As a life member of ASEE, he was the recipient of the Sterling Olmsted Award for a career of "making significant contributions in the teaching and administering of Liberal Education in Engineering Education." The New Jersey council of Teachers of English named him English Educator of the Year, and the NJIT Board of Trustees gave him its award for his fifty years of outstanding teaching and services at NJIT.

Herman Estrin continues to support engineering education and the teaching of technical writing. He will present a paper "A Technical Writing Course that Really Works!" in session 1261 "Team Teaching Tips" at the ASEE 96' Annual Conference.

Writing Must Compete for Readers

Despite amazing advances, information and communication technologies have not eliminated the ancient encounter between a reader and the written word. If anything, the information age makes this meeting more important. A proliferation of instant texts places greater demands on a reader's comprehension and discrimination. Writing, in turn, must compete for an increasingly beleaguered reader's attention. These demands are especially acute for scientific and technical professionals in industry, who depend on writing to provide necessary information quickly, clearly, and accurately. Meeting these demands requires a preparation that emphasizes the particular nature of the professional environment and basic writing approaches tailored to it.

A Key Component of Technical Education

The importance of writing for professional communication and documentation underscores the need for scientific and technical education to address writing skills. Prospective scientists and engineers simply cannot afford to view writing as unnecessary the reserve of English majors who, according to my undergraduate housemates (engineers all), ought to be getting a B.S. degree. They were, of course, not referring to a Bachelor of Science, but to a certain product of bovine metabolism. Rather, students must understand that competent writing is vital to their disciplines and careers.

Practical Reasons to Promote Writing Skill

Some observations from a career in technical industry support the practicality of a solid preparation in writing:

• Fundamentally, information does not exist until presented and interpreted coherently. Actions decisions, designs, projects, programs proceed or founder according to the accessibility of the data and judgements provided.
• Much to their dismay, working engineers and scientists typically find themselves spending almost half their time writing reports, memos, letters, proposals, design and manufacturing documents, etc. As they move into management positions, this burden only increases.
• With the current emphasis on corporate "downsizing," companies are reducing or eliminating their use of professional technical writers and shifting more of this writing responsibility to technical employees.
• Writing is the most visible activity of an individual within an organization, and the most visible representation of an organization to the customer or public. Writing can create, or compromise, an impression of professional competence among a general audience. That impression, even if tacit -- writing quality is seldom a stated criterion of employee evaluations or contracts often plays a significant role in decisions concerning career advancement and product acceptance.

Closer to home, speaking as a college teacher, the practical benefits of good writing appear in the relief and reward of a paper that does not require a concerted effort to disentangle and decipher. While clarity of presentation does not substitute for quality of thought, one usually reflects the other.

The Reader Does Not Want To Read

Effective writing in the professional environment req|uires an understanding of the oxymoron that characterizes the technical audio lice: the reader does not want to read. Technical readers are not litterateurs in search of a nuanced textual experience, but practical, action-oriented individuals who need information and want to get it with a minimum of effort. Particularly in an industrial environment, readers often have little time or inclination for reading. They may not even be comfortable with reading they may not be in the habit of reading for leisure, or English may be their second language, or in some cases they may find any reading difficult.

All readers put themselves at the mercy of a text, and the effectiveness of the text depends on the mercy it offers. For technical readers, mercy depends on immediate accessibility, and this is in turn depends on the transparency of format and style.

Format: Visual and Logical Access

A text first makes a visual impression. The immediate appearance of the text either encourages or discourages reading. The daunting prospect of a sheer, impenetrable wall of words only increases the resistance of an already reluctant reader. Conversely, a text which visually parcels its contents into readily digestible "bytes," clearly identified with headings, allows a quick overall scan and the ability to focus on particular areas. This simplifying visual access invites the reader's attention.

Beyond providing a ready handle on the text, formatting aids comprehension by clarifying the logic of a body of information the move, for example, from a general premise to a particular application, or from observation to conclusion. In descriptions or instructions, format helps both reader and writer to comprehend the logical components of ail object or process.

Acquiring skill in formatting starts with the use of standard formats as models. Conceptually, the ability to format a text depends on the application to writing of logical partitioning skills already used in technical disciplines the identification of patterns and functional or structural clusters and sequences. Technical students must see writing not as an extraneous burden, but as an application and reflection of technical skills.

The No Style Style

Literary critics discern "textures" of style similar to the way art critics note the texture of a painter's canvas. Technical readers are no less sensitive to the feel of language in a text. However, in their case, governed by the expedience of the need to know, any style that intrudes an individuality, personality or eccentricity between the reader and the message is unwelcome. Anything that impedes, obscures or distracts from immediate clarity proves self-defeating. The reader will miss or misinterpret information, and may even give up in frustration, and the writer may then have to spend further time and expense in answering phone calls, writing memos, attending meetings and even making trips to clarify the original message.

An effective technical style does not call attention to itself but achieves a texture of transparency, the smooth invisibility of glass or water. Elements of this style include:

• Correctness. This consists of the old curses of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and includes the need for proofreading. An error in one of these, even an innocent typo, is a landmine in a text, distracting from the information and making a poor impression.
• Conciseness. Writing must be active and direct, conveying a maximum amount of information in a minimum of words.
• Clarity. This involves simplicity of diction and vocabulary. Avoid excesses of florid excrescence while also avoiding, you know, stuff like we all talk. Technical writers must also resist the temptation of technospeak, avoiding jargon where possible, including overuse of the word "utilize."
• Impersonality. Assertions should follow from the strength of data, and should not be weakened by hedging, apologetic phrases about personal opinion. The reader is interested in the work, not you -- your work speaks for you.
• Fluency. Related to correctness, conciseness and clarity, fluency concerns a general continuity of pace and phrasing versus excessive abruptness and awkwardness. An appreciative reader will remark that the text "flows," meaning that it demonstrates a seamless, confident command of the language. This feature is the most difficult to achieve.

Style only comes with practice. Practice profits only from constant repetition and correction. Most importantly, writers must understand that good writing results from revision. No first draft can be perfect, nor should it be -- it is the raw material necessary for ultimate refinement.

Writing and the L.E.D.

The interdisciplinary approach of the Liberal Education Division is particularly suited to promoting the literacy of technical professionals. Training in the liberal arts can enhance the analytical skills involved in the formatting approach required of professional writing. Beyond that, however, the difficult but crucial element of stylistic fluency is finally a matter of the ear, and one can only acquire an ear for fluent writing by absorbing the sound of it from other texts, including the best of English prose and poetry.

A familiarity with good literature coupled with an understanding of the constraints of professional writing may produce marvels of accessibility. According to Robert Graves and Alan Hodge in their analysis of modern English prose, The Reader Over Your Shoulder, examples of an ideal prose style come not from the rhetoric of literary, academic, clerical or political writers, but from professionals in business, science and technology concerned solely with the efficient communication of information. Graves and Hodge conducted their study in Britain in the 1950s, and the professionals whose writing style they so admired were typically products of a combination of technical and classical literary education.

Eric Gadzinski worked as a technical writer in the robotics, aerospace and electronics industries before joining the faculty at Lake Superior State University. He is currently writing a book on the poetry of the Viet Nam War.

Greetings from Michigan's white Upper Peninsula. The weather this winter has indeed been challenging for most of us. Summer will arrive soon, however, and with it the ASEE Annual Conference, June 23rd-26th, in Washington, DC.

Although many concerns will emerge during the conference sessions, one topic of particular interest to members of the Liberal Education Division is the proposed "ABET Engineering Criteria 2000." This criteria, if adopted, will directly affect the LED members. Two articles in this edition of the newsletter forecast the potential impact of the proposed ABET changes, and call for discussion and input from the LED members.

The need for input from LED members into the engineering curriculum is also demonstrated in guest articles by ASEE President Eleanor Baum, and an article by a technical writing professor, Eric Gadzinski. I appreciate the submission of both articles. This issue also profiles ASEE Life Member Herman Estrin in appreciation of his many fine years in support of engineering education.

In closing, I want to encourage you to attend the ASEE Annual Conference, and also ask you to attend the LED business meeting. This (brown bag) luncheon is not a stuffy, boring meeting, but rather an opportunity to greet old friends and make new ones. One topic of discussion will be the programming for the 1997 Annual Conference in Milwaukee, so please bring suggestions for sessions and workshops.

For information on ABET Engineering Criteria 2000,
visit ABET Homepage!
http://www.abet.ba.mcl.us

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