ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION: 'WHAT IS BEST?'

摘要

In any ongoing, professionally executed process or endeavor, continuous improvement should be the goal; education is no exception. Accordingly, every six years the United States Military Academy's (USMA) Engineering Management (EM) Program seeks external accreditation from ABET, Inc. While this critical process ensures that our program is meeting a well-defined and respected standard, it does not provide a ranking of the nation's EM programs or generate a list of best EM educational practices. Simply put, it answers the question, "Against the standard, are we sufficient?"rnIn the same way, every year USMA's EM Program prepares an application for the American Society for Engineering Management's (ASEM) Founders Award for Excellence in Undergraduate EM Education. Over the past three years we have been fortunate to win the top honors in this competition, providing us with evidence of excellence. However, similar to ABET, the results of this competition neither provide a list of best practices nor generate educational benchmarks for the participants, beyond the list of specified eligibility criteria and the listing of information that the nomination packet should include. In short, it answers the question, "On the average, who is best?"rnWith this in mind, this paper posits the need to develop a benchmarking system among the ABET-accredited EM programs. Additionally, it provides a high-level comparison of these programs and suggests several ways to derive a formal set of best practices among them. However, whether through regularly scheduled colloquiums or sister university visits, this paper emphasizes the need to draw on the extensive experience of our nation's EM professors and practitioners to answer the fundamental question, "When it comes to EM education, what is best?"