Objectives

The ASEE International Department facilitates interconnectivity with stakeholders in engineering education from across the globe. The department primarily focuses on the following objectives:

1. The implementation of an annual, high-quality Global Colloquium in partnership with local universities, academia, students, multi-lateral agencies, and industry.
2. In collaboration with a group of engineering education leaders from throughout the world, providing leadership and support to the development of the newly created International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), and all of IFEES initiatives.
3. Moving US engineering education into a globally-oriented, culturally sensitive position, and strategic position.

Activities

Global Colloquia Series - The 2007 Global Colloquium in Istanbul, Turkey had an attendance of nearly 400 participants from six continents. The meeting included the second annual Global Student Forum on Engineering Education, a series of innovative, cutting edge workshops, and a socio-economic/political forum on issues of critical importance in Turkey. This last component was the first of its kind for ASEE, was a great success, and will remain a part of all future ASEE Colloquia. The forthcoming Global Colloquium, on October 19-23 in Cape Town, South Africa, will build on Istanbul’s successes, and will convene engineering education stakeholders from throughout Africa and the world to discuss the challenges faced by engineering education in a “resource-constrained environment.” Special efforts are being made to reach out to African engineering education leaders from all sectors throughout the continent.Additionally, this year's Global Colloquium planning committee includes the distinguished Professor Karl Smith from Purdue University, an expert on cooperative learning. A major effort is being made this year to transition from the traditional Colloquia lecture format to a more cooperative, conversation-based approach.

The theme of the 2008 Global Colloquium is “Excellence and Growth in Engineering Education in Resource Constrained Environments – Learning from each other and working together to produce quality engineers for every part of the world in the 21st Century.” This year’s Colloquium will have three tracks: (1) Research, Inferring and Designing Engineering Education Practice from Research and Societal Context: To what extent should engineering educations collaboration globally to re-engineer their programs? (2) Practice, Successful Practices in Engineering Education and (3) Quality Assurance, Securing a Vibrant Global Economy – building Capacity through Sustainable Accreditation Policy and Practice in Developed and Developing Nations. The event will include the third Global Student Forum on Engineering Education, and will be co-located with the Second Annual IFEES Summit on Engineering Education, which will take place immediately prior to the Colloquium. Both a cutting-edge workshop series and a panel discussion with local experts on issues of socio-economic and political relevance will again be incorporated into the meeting. This year’s Colloquium will also offer a cultural experience and a visit to a local South African township for all interested attendees.

Planning for the 2009 Global Colloquium in Budapest, Hungary is underway. David Radcliff from Purdue University has been selected as the US co-Chair, and Imre Rudas, Rector of Budapest Polytechnic, has been selected as the local co-Chair. Jozsef Tar, also of Budapest Polytechnic, will play an important leadership role as well. Planning for the 2010 Global Colloquium in Singapore has already begun. Seeram Ramakrishna and Colin Leung of the National University of Singapore have been identified as local leaders for the event. Strong efforts are being made to incorporate representatives from all past and future planned ASEE Global Colloquia into the planning of each of the Colloquia.

IFEES – ASEE is the Secretariat for the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), a growing global network that supports and enables international interconnectivity between engineering education stakeholder societies. Founded in 2006 in Rio de Janeiro, IFEES began the dialogue with the following question, posed by founding President Claudio Borri: “How can education in science and technology help to reduce poverty, boost socio-economic development, and take the right decisions for sustainable and environmental compatible development?” Convinced that this question can only be addressed with a truly global approach, IFEES has moved forward with the establishment of the following key initiatives:

The IFEES Annual Summit – Each year IFEES hosts a full-day annual meeting that convenes representatives from IFEES member societies and other key engineering education stakeholders, corporate colleagues, students, and policy makers to discuss pertinent issues in engineering education. The first IFEES Annual Summit took place in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2007, co-located with the ASEE Global Colloquium. The IFEES Summit is the primary initiative of the Federation, serving as a yearly forum for the entire IFEES membership to interact, share best practices and challenges, learn from one another, strengthen their ties, and plan the following year’s activities. This year’s IFEES Annual Summit, taking place on October 19 and 20 in Cape Town, South Africa, is currently being planned by the IFEES Annual Summit Planning Committee.

Involvement in Member Societies’ Meetings – IFEES takes advantage of Member Societies’ meetings in order to hold discussions among IFEES leadership and members on the goals and trajectory of IFEES’ initiatives.

The Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC)– IFEES Vice President Seeram Ramakrishna, Vice President and Dean of the National University of Singapore, has led the IFEES-supported effort to create an international council of engineering deans and technological university directors. This initiative, striving towards greater global interconnectivity among directors of engineering education institutions worldwide, has quickly become a primary focus of the Federation. The Founding Executive Committee meeting of the GEDC will take place on May 8-9 in Paris, France. The meeting will be co-hosted by Dassault Systemes and HP, and will be attended by a high-level representative from UNESCO.

Indo/US Collaborative for Engineering Education (IUCEE) – IFEES actively supports the Indo/US Collaborative for Engineering Education (IUCEE), which is described below.

Corporate Affiliates Council – IFEES has begun discussions with key IFEES member societies from the industrial sector who are planning to form a council of globally-oriented corporations who support IFEES’ vision and strategic goals. This Council, under the umbrella of IFEES, will provide a forum for industry to express its ideas to other engineering education stakeholders from around the world.

Student Involvement – Student participation is a critical component in every aspect of IFEES’ work. IFEES sees the participation of students as a balancing force, to counterweight the wide ranging experience of IFEES membership with innovative new ideas from the next generation of engineering minds. We are happy to report that Omer Hantal, current president of the student engineering organization BEST, was elected a member of the IFEES Executive Committee for the 2007-2009 term. Last year’s IFEES Annual Summit in Istanbul, Turkey included student participation, with over twenty-five dynamic student leaders in attendance. Additionally, a number of globally-oriented student engineering education organizations are actively seeking IFEES membership.

Indo/US Collaborative for Engineering Education (IUCEE) - Given India’s strategic importance to academia and the U.S. economy, ASEE’s international department has partnered with Dr. Krishna Vedula, Dean Emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and colleagues throughout India and the U.S. to encourage collaborative engineering education discussions between the two nations. The leaders of the initiative have raised resources from industry and foundations to support this effort. To best identify avenues for engineering education collaboration between the two nations, IUCEE put on an ASEE-supported two part Action Planning Session in the spring/summer of 2007. The first Action Planning Session, hosted by Infosys in Mysore, India, took place in June 2007; the second Session was held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. from August 29-31, 2007. This Action Planning Session recommended the creation of Regional Indo US Engineering Faculty Institutes with four thrust areas: Curriculum Development, Pedagogy and Delivery; Research and Development; Quality and Accreditation and Innovation and Entrepreneurship, with strong Industry partnership.

These Regional Indo-US Faculty Institutes will foster collaborative networks and exchanges through course offerings for engineering faculty. The resulting networks are expected to lead to mutual benefits to India and to the US, including global experiences for faculty and students, collaborative research, development and entrepreneurship in technologies of global relevance, as well as access for US and Indian universities and companies to more and better prepared engineering graduates.

An Indo US Engineering Faculty Leadership Institute is planned for the summer of 2008 in order to prepare engineering faculty who will lead the creation of these Regional Institutes. Scaling up of the program will be achieved by the “Facilitate the Trainer” approach. Experienced faculty from various regions will be selected to attend the Indo US Engineering Faculty Leadership Institute conducted by US and Indian faculty experts. Workshops will be offered on specific subjects in close consultation with industry. The World Bank Institute, for example, will be giving a workshop on July 8 and 9 entitled Accountability and Autonomy in Engineering Education: What is Working? These workshops will focus on effective methods for teaching the specific subjects and on providing links and access to resources for that purpose. The workshops will be designed to ensure the creation of sustainable communities of practice and collaboration among participants. The workshops will include strategies for mentoring of the selected faculty at their home institutions. They will be encouraged and facilitated to be trainers and will be assisted in offering one-week courses to groups of faculty from engineering colleges at workshops in their regions during the following year as part of their Regional Institutes. Assessment of the outcomes from these workshops will guide development of the program.

Global Student Initiative – ASEE facilitates and supports an emerging network of engineering students from across the globe. These students are deeply involved in the planning of both the Global Colloquia and IFEES meetings. Support for their involvement is expected from the U.S. National Science Foundation, industry, the World Bank Institute and civil society. ASEE will again be hosting a Global Student Forum on Engineering Education during this year's Global Colloquium in Cape Town in close partnership with the Student Platform for Engineering Education (SPEED), and student organization dedicated to the perpetuation of student involvement in the global dialogue on engineering education.

IACEE - ASEE is the Secretariat of the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE). ASEE supports this financially independent organization in the planning and implementation of a biannual global meeting.

The 11th IACEE World Conference on Continuing Engineering Education will be taking place on May 20-23, 2008, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This event, hosted by Georgia Tech, has the theme Preparing Engineering Leaders for Global Challenges.

EAPSI – ASEE’s International Department has partnered with ASEE’s Projects Department to manage and administer the National Science Foundation’s East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI). This exciting program provides US graduate students in science and engineering with a two-month first-hand research experience in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan. This experience provides an introduction to the science and science policy infrastructure of the respective location and to the host site’s society, culture and language.

The primary goals of EAPSI are to introduce students to East Asia and Pacific science and engineering in the context of a research setting, and to help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. ASEE’s International Department provides strategic intellectual guidance to the initiative, and identifies colleagues who have extensive experience with collaborative international research to prep the EAPSI graduate students for their overseas experience.

Engineering for the Americas (EftA) – The director of the ASEE International Programs Department is a member of the Provisional Executive Committee (PEC) of EftA, an effort to further develop engineering and technology education in the Western Hemisphere. This initiative, of strategic importance to corporations, universities and societies throughout the Americas, is beginning to take traction. Recently, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) approved a grant of close to $700,000 USD in support of accreditation and activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Other projects are currently being developed to be submitted to the IADB and the Organization of American States (OAS), which currently houses the EftA Secretariat.

ASEE’s Globally-Oriented Membership

ASEE has approximately 520 Global Online Members, ASEE members who reside outside of the United States. A large number of these individuals have attended one or more of ASEE’s Global Colloquia.

ASEE’s International Department is working to strengthen its relationship with the ASEE International Division, a unit of the ASEE membership that focuses specifically on providing a forum for the exchange of ideas for multicultural and multinational activities and publishing a newsletter to inform its members of various international opportunities and activities.

Partnerships

World Bank Institute - ASEE has signed a partnership Memorandum of Understanding with the World Bank Institute in order to collaborate in the implementation of the Global Colloquiums in Istanbul and Cape Town as well as the Indo/US Collaborative for Engineering Education. The World Bank Institute presented a workshop on the Knowledge Economy during the Istanbul Global Colloquium, and will carry out a workshop during the forthcoming 2008 IUCEE Summer Leadership Institute. The World Bank Institute will also give a workshop at the 2nd IFEES Summit in October 2008.

Partnerships with International Counterpart Societies – ASEE’s International Department facilitates interaction between ASEE and our counterparts around the world. For example:

• ASEE recently signed a partnership agreement with the Korean Society of Engineering Education (KSEE) to encourage collaboration and exchange between the two societies. Both parties have agreed to encourage reciprocal participation in seminars, workshops, conferences, forums, and research. We’re happy to report that the Korean Society will be bringing over 30 academics to the 2008 ASEE Annual Conference in Pittsburgh.
• ASEE has recently partnered with the Indian Society of Technical Education (ISTE) to further advance global engineering excellence through the publication of the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) in India. The principle anticipated benefits of this collaboration are 1) increased membership in ISTE by offering JEE as a member benefit, and cost effective access to engineering education research for ISTE members; 2) increased readers, authors, and reviewers for JEE from India, and increased research collaboration between the two nations; and 3) increased awareness between the two nations of the aspirations of each other’s engineering education societies.

These are only a few examples. ASEE’s International Department is in constant contact with engineering education stakeholders worldwide, forging new relationships and nurturing existing ones, in order to strengthen the connection between the US engineering education community and the rest of the world.

Contact

Hans Jürgen Hoyer, Ph.D.
Director for International Programs and Strategy, ASEE
Deputy Secretary General, IFEES
(202) 331-3511

Spencer B. Potter
International Programs and Public Policy Associate, ASEE/IFEES
(202) 331-3504

Brian Min
International Programs Intern, ASEE/IFEES
(202) 350-5766

Shikha Chetal
International Programs Intern, ASEE/IFEES
(202) 350-5764

Dino Fekaris, Jr.
International Programs Intern, ASEE/IFEES
(202) 350-5768

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