Professional Engineers in Higher Education/Sustaining University Program

Professional Engineers in Higher Education/Sustaining University Program

Best Practice

Submission

Name: Walter W. Buchanan, PhD, JD, PE

Title: J. R. Thompson Chair Professor and Department Head

University: Texas A&M University

Address: ETID Department, 3367 TAMU

City/State/Zip: College Station, TX 77843-3367

Email: Phone: 979-845-4901

Sustaining University Member YES ? NO

We hope to develop a database and a forum for conversation on important issues facing university engineering programs and professors. To begin the process, we are collecting best practices on these issues or other issues facing your university.

DIRECTIONS:

Please give us a brief description of the best practice. Let us know what area it relates to using the check boxes below. You might want to provide information on the problem, objective, process, and outcomes. Include any materials such as syllabuses, bibliographies, PowerPoint Presentations, Graphs, Charts, website references that you are willing to share with other faculty from the Sustaining Universities. Please note that these submissions will be reviewed by Professional Engineers in Higher Education (PEHE) and Sustaining University Program (SUP) members before inclusion on a password protected web site.

The Best Practice described below relates to this area

Freshman Level Design Experience International Education

Professionalism Ethics Licensure x Capstone Design

K-12 Initiatives Diversity Other ______

Description

The Ethics, Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ELE) seminar series is part of the capstone experience for students in the electronics engineering technology (EET) and the telecommunications engineering technology (TET) programs in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. The weekly seminar series leverages the unique interaction with industry that has made the EET/TET programs successful over the years.

Problem:

Ethics, Leadership and Entrepreneurship get very little coverage in the normal engineering and Engineering Technology curriculum.

Objective:

This seminar series is designed to take students away from focusing only on what to do and how to do it and to challenge them to explore why things are done. While the topics are universal the discussions are purposely led to provide students with insight into situations that they are likely to see in the first three years of their professional career.

Process:

In this seminar series invited guests from the private sector will participate in round table discussions with students, faculty, staff and invited guests. Each week the students are assigned an insightful article dealing with ethics, leadership or entrepreneurship to prepare them to participate and observe the roundtable discussion.

Outcomes:

Facilitate the students to wrestle and become familiar with dealing with Ethics, Leadership and Entrepreneurship issues.

Related Materials: (include such things as syllabuses, bibliographies, PowerPoint Presentations, Graphs, Charts, website references) May be added as attachments. Please include only those materials you are willing to share with faculty from other Sustaining Universities.

See: http://capstone.tamu.edu/

Please return this form to:

Marcia Prichard

Manager Professional Practice

703-684-2885 (phone)

703-836-4875 (fax)