A New Program in Leadership Engineering

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is planning to pioneer and establish a new undergraduate program in Leadership Engineering. The overarching program goal is graduation of a new pedigree of qualified engineers with the "soft skills", business acumen and strategic foresight, in addition to engineering prowess, to meet the needs of industry in the 21st century. Following the recommendation from James Duderstadt's "Engineering for a Changing World" [1], we propose a new paradigm for the education of the engineering leaders of the 21st century. The Duderstadt model mirrors the medical school training model that is credited with propelling advancement in medical practice during the last century, where the BS degree includes a broad-based curriculum of engineering design, project management, technology, ingenuity and innovation, along with business, communication, ethics, and social sciences. This foundation is then followed by post-graduate study, via a professional Master's degree program, in a specific discipline or concentration. The Leadership Engineering degree program is a first important, and viable, step towards that new paradigm. A large fraction of the graduates of the Leadership Engineering program are anticipated to pursue professional graduate degrees in a variety of engineering fields. Through a curriculum that provides a framework for building successful businesses, students graduating from the program may also move into the booming technology services sector or choose to start their own innovative companies. Finally, graduates of the Leadership Engineering program will be prepared to serve as leadership engineering educators in the K-12 sector, or for further graduate preparation in the expanding field of engineering education.