ECSEL/MIT Engineering Education Workshop '99: A Report with Recommendations

In May, 1999, the NSF funded, Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership, (ECSEL) sponsored a workshop at MIT to: (i) describe and disseminate the principal results of the coalition's efforts over the past decade, (ii) bring together faculty, department chairs and deans from a wide variety of engineering schools to explore how the most significant barriers to reform of engineering education might be overcome, and (iii) to promote the development of effective policies for the future. Panel sessions and roundtables addressed many of the critical issues facing faculty and administrators seeking to renovate undergraduate engineering education. A wide range of experiences were described and proposals advanced. The authors summarize these discussions and put forward a set of recommendations founded upon the essential points made over the course of the two‐day workshop.