NSF RED: ENGINEER

Engaging New Generations in Engineering Education Reform

Wilkes University’s Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Department is undertaking a National Science Foundation Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (NSF RED) planning project to develop a shared, evidence-based vision for the future of undergraduate engineering education. The project, ENGINEER: Engaging New Generations in Engineering Education Reform, focuses on building the departmental capacity, collaborative structures, and stakeholder partnerships needed for sustained educational transformation.

The planning effort explores a shift from a traditional course-centered and discipline-siloed model toward a more integrated approach in which faculty collaborate across courses and disciplines, students connect theory with authentic engineering practice, and industry and alumni help inform the competencies needed by future engineers.

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Our Vision

The long-term vision is to create a cohesive, student-centered engineering education model that connects learning across semesters, disciplines, and professional contexts. Rather than treating courses as isolated experiences, the project will explore a matrix-style framework that encourages shared faculty responsibility for student learning and strengthens systems-level thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and professional formation.

Three integrative threads will guide the planning process:

  • Creativity: Connecting technical learning with design thinking, innovation, and optimization.
  • Foundations: Applying mathematics and science to meaningful, real-world engineering challenges.
  • Professionalism: Strengthening communication, ethics, teamwork, professional identity, and other capabilities needed for engineering practice.

These threads are intended to support project-based and collaborative learning experiences that help students integrate knowledge, apply theory in context, and develop confidence and identity as engineers.

Project Goals

Understand departmental needs and opportunities

Conduct a comprehensive self-study of curriculum, student pathways, faculty and student perspectives, and structural, pedagogical, and cultural barriers to change.

Build faculty capacity for collaboration and reform

Create interdisciplinary faculty working groups (X-teams) and a faculty learning community (Y-circle) to support curricular integration, inclusive pedagogy, professional identity formation, and distributed leadership.

Engage students, alumni, industry, and other stakeholders

Use interviews, roundtables, surveys, and advisory input to ensure the future educational model is relevant to student needs, workforce expectations, and regional opportunities.

Develop a roadmap for future transformation

Synthesize the planning work into a logic model, implementation roadmap, governance approach, evaluation framework, and a future NSF RED Track 3 proposal.

Key Planning Activities

Participatory visioning and collaborative design

Faculty, students, alumni, and industry partners will participate in structured visioning activities to identify strengths, challenges, priorities, and guiding principles for engineering education reform.

Faculty development and distributed leadership

Cross-disciplinary X-teams will explore course and curriculum integration, while the Y-circle faculty learning community will create space for discussion of inclusive pedagogy, engineering identity, organizational change, and the purpose of reform.

Institutional analysis and stakeholder engagement

The team will examine student progression, retention, graduation, curricular patterns, and stakeholder perspectives to identify barriers, assets, and opportunities. Industry and alumni input will help define desired graduate competencies and future engagement opportunities.

Strategic roadmapping

Project findings will be brought together in a logic model, implementation roadmap, governance framework, and evaluation strategy that can guide a future department-wide transformation initiative.

Expected Outcomes

A shared departmental vision and guiding principles for engineering education reform.

 

Curriculum maps and a clearer understanding of barriers, bottlenecks, assets, and opportunities.

 

Faculty collaboration structures that support distributed leadership and curricular integration.

 

Documented input from students, alumni, industry partners, and advisors.

 

A planning logic model, governance approach, implementation roadmap, and evaluation framework.

 

Why This Work Matters

Engineering education must prepare graduates not only with strong technical foundations, but also with the ability to work across disciplines, communicate effectively, solve complex problems, act ethically, and adapt to rapidly changing technologies and workforce needs. The ENGINEER planning project is designed to help Wilkes identify how its curriculum, faculty structures, and external partnerships can better support these outcomes in a coordinated and sustainable way.

The project also places particular attention on the sophomore and junior years, important transition points in the engineering curriculum. By examining student experiences, course progression, institutional data, and stakeholder input, the planning team will identify opportunities to strengthen persistence, belonging, professional identity, and preparation for engineering practice.

Integrated Learning

Connecting courses and disciplines through shared curricular threads and authentic engineering problems.

Faculty Collaboration

Building cross-disciplinary structures that support shared ownership of educational innovation.

Student Success

Using evidence and student input to strengthen learning, persistence, belonging, and professional identity.

Industry Engagement

Aligning educational priorities with evolving workforce needs and expanding opportunities for applied learning.

Sustainable Change

Developing the roadmap, governance, and evaluation structures needed for long-term transformation.

Broader Impacts

The project is intended to strengthen Wilkes University’s capacity to create a more integrated, inclusive, evidence-based, and professionally relevant model of engineering education. By building durable faculty collaboration structures, incorporating student and stakeholder voices, and aligning curricular innovation with regional workforce needs, the planning effort can contribute to improved student persistence and professional formation while creating a model that may be informative to other primarily undergraduate engineering institutions.

Project Leadership

Principal Investigator (PI)

Dr. Abas Sabouni

  • Project leadership
  • Coordination
  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Integration of planning activities
  • Development of the transformation roadmap and future proposal

Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs)

Dr. Yong Zhu

  • Faculty collaboration
  • Student pathways
  • X-team development
  • Facilitation of faculty learning activities

Dr. Ed Bednarz III

  • Curriculum analysis
  • Course mapping
  • Alignment with accreditation and educational outcomes

Dr. Jamal Ghorieshi

  • Industry and alumni engagement
  • Workforce alignment
  • Stakeholder coordination

Dr. Mohsen Ghamari

  • Organizational and cultural analysis
  • Inclusive pedagogy
  • Faculty learning activities

External Advisors

The Wilkes team will receive strategic guidance from two experienced NSF RED leaders.

  • Dr. Ashfaq Khokhar, Dean and Professor and the LeRoy C. and Aileen H. Paslay Chair in Engineering in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University, will provide advice related to faculty culture change, integrated design, institutional transformation, and departmental self-assessment.
  • Dr. Alan Cheville will provide guidance on structural reform, convergence, socio-technical integration, capability-based approaches, and reflective assessment.

Their roles are advisory, with the Wilkes PI and Co-PIs leading the project’s planning activities and deliverables.

Collaboration with Industry and Alumni

Regional employers and Wilkes alumni are important partners in the planning process. Through interviews, advisory discussions, and roundtables, the project will gather input on the skills, behaviors, and mindsets expected of new engineering graduates. This feedback will inform curricular priorities and help identify opportunities for deeper collaboration through internships, externships, capstone projects, and applied research.

About Our Project

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation through the Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) program, Award Number 2550301. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in project materials are those of the project team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.