The ECE Department recently received news that its undergraduate program has been approved for participation in the National Academcy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP). The effort to become an approved program was led by Dr. Eli Fromm, long-serving member of the department faculty and member of the NAE.
In 2008, the NAE identified 14 areas of opportunity and challenge for society in the 21st century that it feels could be addressed through engineering. More information about the Grand Challenges that the NAE identified can be found on the NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering website. These are known as Grand Challenges for Engineering and it is the drive to address these Grand Challenges that spurred the creation of the GCSP. The GCSP is a "combined curricular and extra-curricular program with five components that are designed to prepare students to be the generation that solves the grand challenges facing society in this century."
Each approved program is expected to prepare students to address these challenges by integrating five key components that include increasing student participation in hands-on projects or research, creating an interdisciplinary curriculum, fostering entrepreneurship, developing a global perspective, and promoting service learning. While the GCSP is currently focused on creating innovative educational models through smaller pilot programs, the hope is that these will inform mainstream educational practices to create an even wider pool of engineers prepared to tackle the challenges facing the nation and the world. More information about the GCSP can be found on the program website.