The 2-page whitepaper, iFoundry and the Creative Engineer of the Future, is available for download here.

In today’s Message from the Dean, Dean Ilesanmi Adesida announced the establishment of iFoundry as a college activity:

To better serve engineering in the future, a group of faculty members has been brainstorming about creative ways in which we can strengthen the creative capacity of our students–to preserve their strong technical skills while emphasizing the elements of design, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. This led to the idea for a collaborative pilot program in the college to serve as a foundry for engineering curriculum innovation. Over the past year, the idea for such an initiative for curriculum enrichment was extensively debated among College of Engineering faculty, administrators, students, and industry stakeholders, and attracted significant interest and support to move forward.

Therefore, it is with pleasure that I announce the launch of iFoundry: The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, an interdepartmental curriculum innovation incubator that will serve as the focus of engineering curriculum innovation activities in the college, fostering creative enrichment of our curriculum and harnessing the innovation of our faculty to create a new paradigm for engineering education in the 21st century. I have asked Professors David Goldberg (IESE) and Andreas Cangellaris (ECE) to serve as co-directors of this initiative. Initially, iFoundry efforts will focus on realigning humanities and social science coursework in student-selected themes, injecting digital media content into new and existing coursework, and making the first two years of engineering education more effective and attractive.

Over the next couple of months, David and Andreas will be meeting with the leadership and curriculum committees of all departments in the college to discuss the vision of the initiative and engage faculty to contribute to the definition, development and implementation of an enriched educational experience for our students, faithful to the Illinois tradition for leadership in engineering education.

The current iFoundry website is at http://www.ifoundry.illinois.edu.

In our complex society, today’s engineers must be capable of creating new products and services to compete in a globally competitive marketplace. At the same time they must respond effectively to difficult societal and environmental challenges. Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering at Illinois, has announced a bold plan to forge a new breed of creative engineers for the 21st century by creating a new interdepartmental curriculum incubator, iFoundry: The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education.

“The current engineering curriculum was established during the Cold War era and needs to be thoroughly reexamined and overhauled,” Adesida stated. “Engineering today is unusually fast-paced and requires an uncommon blend of knowledge and skill along technological, humanistic, and artistic dimensions.”

Despite the need for change, few engineering schools have yet to make the adjustments required to realign engineering education with the needs of an Internet age.

Charles Tucker, associate dean for undergraduate programs, suggested the need for an overhaul of the organizational processes of change.

“iFoundry will allow us to make meaningful changes, such as strengthening the creative capacity of our students, while preserving the technical excellence that has been the hallmark of Engineering at Illinois,” remarked Tucker. “iFoundry is a collaborative, interdepartmental curriculum incubator, where volunteer faculty and students from many departments will come together to plan, test, and execute the engineering curricula of the future.”