AAEE - Australasian Engineering Education Awards

The Institution of Engineers, Australia Award for Cultural Change in Engineering Education (not offered after 2000)

The presentation of the inaugural IEAust Award for Cultural Change in Engineering Education was made at last year’s AAEE conference to the entire Faculty of Engineering at the University of Technology, Sydney in recognition of their radical redesign of the UTS undergraduate engineering course.

UTS was nominated for the award by John Nutt, Chairman of Ove Arup and Partners. The citation accompanying the award explains the basis of the nomination:

The changes being made to the Engineering program at UTS are profound, not only for Engineering, but also for the wider academic community.

The ideas, the intellectual quality, the philosophy, the leadership, the transparent debate, the sensitive consultative procedures, and the passion which the entire Faculty brought to the development of the new Bachelor of Engineering, Diploma in Engineering Practice are outstanding.

The new curriculum has the potential to equip UTS graduates for engineering practice in the 21st century by contributing to their formation as future professionals in their chosen field of practice; their personal development as socially and environmentally aware citizens; and their academic development as scholars and lifelong learners.

Cultural change demands a comprehensive and radical reappraisal of engineering education, and this is the path that UTS has embarked upon.

The UTS Engineering Faculty had been critically reflecting upon its educational programs for some time. This, together with the recommendations from the National Review of Engineering Education had precipitated a process of profound cultural change in the Faculty. The cultural change is manifested in the new combined undergraduate course - Bachelor of Engineering, Diploma in Engineering Practice (BE DipEngPrac) - by its inclusivity of student voice about future directions for engineering; by its treatment of sustainability as a central engineering concern; by its incorporation of the engineer’s social responsibility as a core thread; and by its presentation of a more holistic and inclusive view of engineering. The over arching achievement in the cultural change process, however, has been the practice of reflection in their own practice of engineering education, which included the following foci:

What do we want as university engineering education, and what are its aims?
What do we understand as our model of teaching and learning?
What should be our approach to curriculum development and teaching?
What is the future of engineering, what can it be, what do we want it to be?

The above provides only a snapshot of what has been happening in the Faculty; however, it represents for the Faculty a significant learning process. It is not without tensions, conflicts, resistance, and the occasional defiance and despondency that this cultural change process is taking place. But their conviction that professional education involves the formation of reflective practitioners carries through to their own processes of negotiating, constructing and owning a shared understanding of UTS engineering education. This provides both direction and confidence in these gently turbulent times.