This fall the Engineering, Technology, and Culture Lecture Series will be an interdisciplinary film series organized by Christian Sandvig: Movies Even an Engineer Would Love: Stories About Culture and Technology.
The first screening: Radiant City
October 8, 7:00 to 9:00pm at the Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL.
Today at 11 am, iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg will discuss the intellectual origins and foundations of iFoundry in a talk entitled The Creativity Imperative and the Technology Professional of the Futureas part of the Information Science and Technology Center (ISTeC) Distinguished lecture series. ISTeC is located on the campus of Colorado State University and is directed by H. J. Siegel.
On September 25, iFoundry (together with the Undergraduate Programs Office in the College of Engineering, and the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education) sponsored a Workshop on the First Year of Engineering.
The talk by Dr. Stephen Carr (Associate Dean for Undergraduate Engineering at Northwestern University) on “Growing into Thinking as an Engineer: Two Courses for Freshmen at Northwestern University” can be viewed here or below.
The talk by Dr. Brian Storey (Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering) on “The Origin and Evolution of Olin College’s First Year Engineering Curriculum” can be viewed here or below.
Also see the video of Professor David Lange, Associate Dean Charles Tucker, and Dean Ilesanmi Adesida welcoming participants in the workshop.
Laura Hollis, JD, launches a new series on iFoundry’s YouTube channel: Engineering & Law, Technology, and Commercialization. Her first video, “9 Things You Need to Know About an Employment Contract… Before You Sign it” is here or in the viewer below.
See the slideshow here. Laura Hollis is Clinical Professor of Business Administration at Illinois.
iFoundry co-director Dave Goldberg presents a lecture at Colorado State University, The Creativity Imperative and the Technology Professional of the Future. See the synced ppt and video at the CSU link here.
iFoundry co-director Andreas Cangellaris has been named interim head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois. He will continue to co-direct iFoundry during this assignment.
To pave the way for curricula reform, the College of Engineering is forging a program based upon organizational change first.
The college recently launched iFoundry: The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, an interdepartmental curriculum incubator that is exploring ways to enrich and balance engineering curricula so that students develop competencies in crucial “soft skills” – such as communication and teamwork, critical and creative thinking, and ethics – in addition to math and science.
The goal of iFoundry is to shift the focus of engineering education from analysis to artifacts – products, processes and systems – and the ways in which people conceptualize and use them.
“The current engineering curriculum was established during the Cold War era and needs to be thoroughly re-examined and overhauled,” Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College, said in a news release announcing iFoundry. “Engineering today is unusually fast-paced and requires an uncommon blend of knowledge and skill along technological, humanistic and artistic dimensions.”
“One of the things that’s difficult about curricula change is that it is a political process, and you really have to change minds before you can get permission to change courses,” said David E. Goldberg, a professor of industrial and enterprise systems engineering and co-director of iFoundry along with Andreas Cangellaris, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Curricula change is an academic NIMBY – not in my backyard – problem. Everyone agrees it’s great, except when it comes to changing their own courses or prerequisites. The key to iFoundry is that it respects faculty governance while allowing experimental change.
Recently, Sr. VP for Human Resources and Administration of Fluor Corporation, H. Steven Gilbert, visited campus to talk about globalization in the engineering and construction industry. Watch a short clip of that talk on the iFoundry YouTube channel (here), or below in the viewer.
More information about careers at Fluor can be found here.
5:05 iFoundry, the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, reflects on the journey of it's students throughout their first year at the Un...
