Competitive growth in today's economy requires engineers to possess innovation skills to create novel designs. An entrepreneurial mindset enables people to think and then act in a certain way to discover, evaluate, and exploit opportunities by understanding the value proposition of a new idea, identifying the potential market, and adapting ideas…

The integrity of a structural system depends on the strength of materials, shape of the individual member and the elements used to hold the members together. In most undergraduate civil engineering curricula, a structural steel and/or reinforced concrete design course is required. Usually, the main focus of these courses is on member selection…

The High School Summer Research Program (HSSRP) is a rigorous eight-week research experience that challenges high school students to a novel scientific question in an engineering laboratory at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The program collates highly…

This article reflects upon an investigative study of the powerful impact that mentoring partnerships have on pre-college students and young engineering professionals in Hartford, CT. It was found that these partnerships can provide very strong foundations for a diverse pre-college student engineering pipeline that includes significant numbers of…

Many interesting research and design questions occur at the intersections of traditional disciplines, yet most coursework and research programs for undergraduate engineering students are focused on one discipline. This leads to underutilization of the potential in better preparing students through multidisciplinary projects. Identifying this…

Steel connections play important roles in the integrity of a structure, and many structural failures are attributed to connection failures. Connections are the glue that holds a structure together. The failures of the Hartford Coliseum in 1977, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City in 1980, and the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in 2007 are all…

Research experience has been proven to be effective in enhancing the overall educational experience for undergraduate students. In this article, two engineering research projects with undergraduate students involvement are discussed. The projects provided the undergraduate student researchers with motivation for independent research work and…

A solar power collector optimization design project has been developed for use in undergraduate classrooms and/or laboratories. The design optimization depends on understanding the current-voltage characteristics of the starting photovoltaic cells as well as how the cell's electrical response changes with increased light illumination. Students…

Recent decline of students pursuing engineering degree programs is a great concern for many higher education authorities including Federal and State governments. Existing programs in high schools have not yet produced the desired results. Consequently, a number of initiatives to remedy this situation have been proposed and implemented. One such…

This paper chronicles the development of an interdisciplinary course in environmentally conscious design at Kettering University, a technologically focused Midwestern university. Funded by the National Science Foundation, a team of six faculty members at Kettering University adapted work done by Ford Motor Company to educate undergraduate STEM…

The engineering profession continues to struggle to attract new talent, in part because it is not well understood by the general public and often viewed in a negative light. Therefore, engineering professionals have called for new approaches promote better understanding and change negative perceptions. One suggested approach is for engineering…

Engineering Management courses are added to a traditional engineering curriculum to enhance the value of an undergraduate's engineering degree. A four-year engineering degree often leaves graduates lacking in business and management acumen. Engineering management education covers topics enhancing the value of new graduates by teaching management…

The reformation of the contents for instruction across STEM fields has changed the role of STEM educators from being a "dictator" in the classroom/laboratory to a facilitator of students' activities. More important, this new paradigm and professional orientation for STEM educators is no more limited to delivering instruction intuitively, but with…

This paper discusses the year 2008 and the 2009 results of implementing the Laboratory for Innovative Technology and Engineering Education (LITEE) case studies in an engineering class at Hampton University (HU), a HBCU. Questionnaires were administered at the conclusion of the experiment. The goal of this research is to investigate the relevance…

Teaching "Engineering Graphics" to freshman engineering students poses challenges to instructors as well as to students. While the instructors are confronted with a lack of material / text book that covers the broad scope of the subject matter, the students struggle to correlate newly developed skills to real-world engineering design problems…