To prepare the next generation of civil engineers to tackle 21st century challenges, engineering education must commit to deepening engineer’s social consciousness through exposure to societal problems in addition to teaching technical competencies. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenges for Engineering offers a framework for exposing students to the role of a modern engineer and the complex global challenges that require engineering intervention. In response to these challenges, many U.S. engineering schools have adopted the Grand Challenge Scholars (GCS) program to educate a new generation of engineering professionals equipped to tackle society’s most imminent problems. This paper presents the development of a holistic rubric to assess student scholarship and inform competencies related to Grand Challenges. The rubric builds on best practices in assessment and evaluation of the five key NAE GCS program components, including 1) hands-on project/research experience, 2) interdisciplinary curriculum, 3) entrepreneurship, 4) global dimension, and 5) service learning. The authors discuss potential applications of the rubric to evaluate course-level outcomes and programmatic-level outcomes, including student projects from an interdisciplinary course entitled “XXXX” in which students work collaboratively in teams to address a societal Grand Challenge in a semester-long project and multi-semester, interdisciplinary student projects that tackle Grand Challenges on an international scale entitled “XXXX.” This rubric fills a literature gap in assessing 21st century global engineering skills by measuring capabilities based five key NAE GCS program components and provides a mechanism to understand and influence the quality of student education and experiences within Grand Challenge-focused courses and programs.
○ Claire L. A. Dancz, Ph.D. is a Research Associate for Education Systems at Watt Family Innovation Center and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University. Dr. Dancz’s research interests include facul
Jeffery Plumblee is a project management, innovation, sustainability, and education consultant. He holds his BS, MS, MBA, and PhD from Clemson University, where he focused on civil engineering. Plumblee has managed a faculty grant and training program for an innovation and entrepreneurship nonprofit; served as a tenure-track faculty member in the Department of Engineering Leadership and Program Management at The Citadel; and developed and managed multiple programs at Clemson University, including the award winning Clemson Engineers for Developing Communities. He enjoys researching and implementing ways to help helping under-resourced areas become more sustainable and resilient, as well as developing sustainabiity-related technologies.
DR. PENELOPE BRUNNER is the Director of Assessment and Planning for Clemson’s College of Engineering. In this role, she works with academic departments and administrative offices on assessment reporting and strategic planning alignments.
Prior to joining Clemson, Dr. Brunner was an Associate Vice President at the College of Charleston. As an associate professor within the University of North Carolina system, she taught courses in Management and Management Information Systems. Her national and international consultancies involve working with a variety of accreditation agencies including Middle States, Western Association, AACSB, and NCATE.
A native Oklahoman, Dr. Brunner holds MA, MBA, and EdD degrees from the University of Tulsa.
Dr. Karen High holds an academic appointment in the Engineering Science and Education department and joint appointments in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department as well as the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences department. Prior
Leidy Klotz is an engineering faculty member at Clemson University, where he developed and teaches courses like the one described in this paper. He does research on decision making and education for sustainability.
Dr. Landis joined Clemson in June 2015 as the Thomas F. Hash ’69 Endowed Chair in Sustainable Development. Previously she was an Associate Professor at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. She began her career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, after having obtained her PhD in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the supervision of Dr. Thomas L. Theis. She has developed a research program in sustainable engineering of bioproducts. Her research ranges from design of systems based on industrial ecology and byproduct synergies, life cycle and sustainability assessments of biopolymers and biofuels, and design and analysis of sustainable solutions for healthcare. Since 2007, she has lead seven federal research projects and collaborated on many more, totaling over $7M in research, with over $12M in collaborative research. At ASU, Dr. Landis continues to grow her research activities and collaborations to include multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable systems with over 60 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Landis is dedicated to sustainability engineering education and outreach; she works with local high schools, after school programs, local nonprofit organizations, and museums to integrate sustainability and engineering into K-12 and undergraduate curricula.
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