January 22, 2009

Why Engineering Schools Are Slow to Change

By Paul Basken

Laurence J. Jacobs, an associate dean at the Georgia Institute of Technology, didn’t need the latest report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, on engineering education, to tell him that he and his engineering colleagues have a problem.

The National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Engineering, and others have been warning for at least two decades that American engineering education is too theoretical and not hands-on enough.