This month we dive into Klassen et al’s ‘Charting the landscape of engineering leadership education in North American universities’, which offers a framework for comparing 15 North American Engineering Leadership (EL) programs. The authors identified over 200 different program elements, from courses to workshops to services for student leaders across the 15 schools. They suggest that engineering leadership programs can be grouped into three distinct clusters: technical integration, developing social impact, and influencing core curriculum to reach all engineering students.
The conceptual framework developed in this paper has been used by engineering leadership program directors in the United States and Canada to design and assess the impact of their programs.
Student takeaways:
Read this paper to understand the leadership styles and assumptions you may see reflected as you move through different groups and organizations. What leadership-focused professional development opportunities might you seek out in the future as the field expands?
For aspiring engineering leadership education researchers interested in program evaluation, the authors highlight a typology that may be used to assess and appreciate the diversity of EL programming in North America. Consider ways to apply this typology to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in engineering leadership education.
This paper is a window onto the wide-ranging leadership development opportunities open to engineering students at UofT, MIT, Tufts and elsewhere. What kinds of models available at other schools may work for us here at ILead?